science

History of street lighting in the United States

History of street lighting in the United States is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand History of street lighting in the United States rather than just read about it. In short: The history of street lighting in the United States is closely linked to the urbanization of America. Artificial illumination has stimulated commercial activity at night, and has been tied to the country's economic development, including major innovations in transportation, particularly the growth in automobile use.

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Reference excerpt

The history of street lighting in the United States is closely linked to the urbanization of America. Artificial illumination has stimulated commercial activity at night, and has been tied to the country's economic development, including major innovations in transportation, particularly the growth in automobile use. In the two and a half centuries before LED lighting emerged as the new "gold standard", cities and towns across America relied on oil, coal gas, carbon arc, incandescent, and high-intensity gas discharge lamps for street lighting.

Oil lamp street lighting

The earliest street lights in the colonial America were oil lamps burning whale oil from the Greenland or Arctic right whales of the North Atlantic, or from sperm whales of the South Atlantic, South Pacific, and beyond. Lamplighters were responsible for igniting the lamps and maintaining them. As early as the 1750s, inventor Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia introduced innovations in oil lamp design, such as using two woven wicks to siphon oil from a reservoir, and flat panes of glass which could be easily replaced and were cheaper than blown glass bowls. In Boston, a citizens' committee led by John Hancock installed more than 300 oil lamps from England in 1773. The year before, a newspaper editorial had called for a system of public lamps to prevent crime and protect citizens at night. The glass globes were placed on posts ten feet high and spaced fifty feet apart along the street, following the system used in London. These early street lights were "more suggestive than real"; in practice, pedestrians moved from one pool of light to another, walking through shadow in between. In New York, more than 1,600 oil lamps were in use as city street lights in 1809. The city had started using spermaceti oil, which burned more brightly than candles, in its street lamps from as early as 1792. Philadelphia was close behind during this period, with 1,100 street lamps.

Gas street lighting

Gas lamps gradually started replacing oil street lamps in the United States, beginning in the first quarter of the 19th century. The first street in the world to be illuminated by gaslight was Pall Mall in London, starting in 1807. The first US city to use gas street lights was Baltimore, starting in 1817. In 1816, artist Rembrandt Peale had demonstrated the use of gas lamps to light exhibits at the Peale Museum in Baltimore, displaying what The Federal Gazette and Daily Advertiser called "the beautiful and most brilliant light". The following year, a group of investors formed the Gas Light Company of Baltimore, which was authorized by the municipal government to lay pipes to use coal gas to light public streets. Although both New York and Philadelphia experimented with gas street lighting around this time, the sophistication of their existing oil-based lighting systems meant that those cities were slower to replace the street lamps they already had with technology that was still unproven. By 1835, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston had also built the requisite infrastructure of piped networks connected to manufacturing gas plants (MGPs) to supply gas light to shopping boulevards, wealthy residential neighborhoods, and major thoroughfares. That year, only 384 of New York City's 5,660 street lamps were gaslights. Chicago turned on its first hundred-odd gaslights on September 4, 1850. Gas light was up to ten times brighter than light from oil lamps, but by present-day standards, the lights appeared "distinctly yellow and not very bright". In 1841, British author James Silk Buckingham observed that New York City's street lights were inadequate: “The lamps are so far apart and so scantily supplied with light that it is impossible to distinguish names or numbers on the doors from carriages or even on foot without ascending the steps." By 1893, New York City had 26,500 gas street lights and only 1,500 electrical lights.

Electric street lighting

Arc lamps

The first public demonstration of outdoor electrical lighting in the US was in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 29, 1879. Inventor Charles F. Brush had been perfecting the dynamo arc light, which could produce a glow equivalent to 4,000 candles in a single lamp. For the demonstration, which drew a crowd of thousands, Brush positioned twelve 2,000-candlepower lamps on towers around Cleveland's Public Square (then known as Monumental Park), and fully illuminated it with electric light. The first municipal government to purchase and install the Brush arc lighting system was the city of Wabash, Indiana. On March 31, 1880, Wabash became "the first town in the world generally lighted by electricity," as four 3,000-candlepower Brush lights suspended from the flagstaff on top of the Wabash County Courthouse were switched on, flooding the neighborhood with light. According to an eyewitness, "The people, almost with bated breath, stood overwhelmed with awe." The journalist reported that he had been able to read a newspaper, held up to the light, from one street away; from two blocks away, he could still read the headlines; from four blocks away he could make out the advertisements. Demand for the Brush street lighting system grew quickly, as it provided higher-quality light for one-third the cost of gas lamps. In 1880, Brush conducted a demonstration in New York City, erecting 23 arc lamps along Broadway. As a result, Brush won several city contracts including contracts for lighting Union Square and Madison Square, where towers were erected for the arc lamps. On major thoroughfares such as Broadway, arc lamps were placed on lampposts at 250-foot intervals; by 1886, approximately 30 miles of thoroughfares in New York City were lit by arc lamps. On Fifth Avenue, however, arc lamps were dismantled after residents complained that the wires connecting the fixtures were "unsightly", and most of the street "returned to the gloom of gas." By 1893, New York City had 1,535 electric arc street lights. In New Orleans, arc lamps were used for street lighting starting in 1881. In 1882, the New Orleans Brush Lighting Company installed one hundred 2,000-candlepower arc lamps along five miles of wharf and riverfront; by 1885, New Orleans had 655 arc lights. In Chicago, arc lamps were used in public street lighting starting in 1887. At first, arc lamps were only used on Chicago River bridges, but by 1910, they were used more widely on major Chicago streets.

Incandescent lights

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Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with History of street lighting in the United States

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what History of street lighting in the United States claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to History of street lighting in the United States before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about History of street lighting in the United States ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of History of street lighting in the United States

In research: History of street lighting in the United States appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses History of street lighting in the United States in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: History of street lighting in the United States is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics History of science and technology in the United States, Street lighting, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for History of street lighting in the United States outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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Frequently asked questions

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Why does History of street lighting in the United States matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

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Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

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It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on History of street lighting in the United States.