NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Gaslighting in America A Guide for Historic Preservation

Candeliers similar to the one shown here were installed in the library of Sir Walter Scott's "Abbotsford" near Edinburgh by 1823. [10] Different patterns of this general form, i.e., pyramidal shape with a single tier of lamps, remained popular into the 1850s. Later examples substituted pipe rods for the chains and omitted the center stem.

This particular style is Neo-Renaissance more than neoclassical. Note the male masks on the soffit of the base, or "bowl"; both male and female heads, half figures, and figures, as well as animal forms were favorite ornamental motifs until after 1860.

The "urn" and "bowl" in this example are holdovers from oil chandelier designs and serve no function in the operation of a gas fixture.

The globes of this chandelier and that on the previous plate suggest that fishtail burners may have been used, yet the large circular forms of the burners themselves indicate Argands. If Argand burners were used, the engraver omitted the requisite chimneys, perhaps in the interest of simplification.

From the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Lot 2728. (click on image for a PDF version)

Chandeliers ornamented with ascending concentric prism-hung rings originated during the English Regency and passed out of fashion during the 1840s. The prisms were aptly termed "icicles."

Later examples of the ring-supported prism type show much more glass in proportion to the metal visible, and the chains seen here do not appear on later examples. The supporting elements of some American examples dating from the 1840s were silvered, however, the usual finish of the metal parts was gilt ormolu.

The rather naturalistic ornament of the four branches of this example, uniting the English rose and the Scottish thistle, was most certainly British; but the small dancing figures suggest possible French Empire influence. The serendipitous expression of the mythological creatures at the top seems to indicate that they found the chains unexpectedly delicious!

From the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Lot 2728. (click on image for a PDF version)

In a New Englander's memoirs, the author recalls:

Gas was not introduced into dwelling-houses [in Boston] until Pemberton Square was built by the Lowells, Jacksons, and their friends, in the years 1835, 1836, and later. It was a surprise to everyone when Papanti introduced it in his new Papanti's Hall. To prepare for that occasion the ground-glass shades had a little rouge shaken about in the interior, that the white gaslight might not be too unfavorable to the complexion of the beauties below. [11]

These same beauties may be those in this undated lithograph by B. W. Thayer from a music cover titled "Tremont Quadrilles." In 1838, the noted Boston dancing master Lorenzo Papanti opened a ballroom in Tremont Row on Tremont Street that was "lighted by crystal chandeliers imported from Paris at a cost of $1,200." [12] The costumes, hair fashion and the lighting indicate that this may well be the occasion depicted here. It does not, as has sometimes been thought, illustrate a ballroom in the famous Tremont House, a Boston hotel built in 1829. [13]

Note that because no oil fonts are visible, the fixtures are assuredly gas — the chandeliers, brackets, and, on the musicians gallery parapet, gas "pillars." This is one of the earliest views of a gaslighted American interior.

Reprinted from music cover, Tremont Quadrilles." B. W. Thayer and Company. Lithograph courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. (click on image for a PDF version)

In his "Philosophy of Furniture" (1840) Edgar Allen Poe wrote:

We are violently enamored of gas and of glass. The former is totally inadmissable within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light offends . . . The huge and unmeaning glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted and without shade, which dangle in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly. [14]

The "huge glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade," shown in this half of an 1866 stereoscopic view, "dangled" in the most prominent (if not the most fashionable) drawing-room in America the East Room of the White House. Despite their offending Poe's aesthetic sensibility, there seems little doubt that President James K. Polk liked the fixtures, because he had the candle-holding chandeliers converted to burn gas in 1848, by the noteworthy Philadelphia firm of Cornelius and Company who supplied new gas fixtures for other major rooms of the White House as well. The three East Room chandeliers had been bought by President Andrew Jackson from the Philadelphia upholstering firm, Lewis Veron and Company, on June 7, 1834, at a total cost of $3,300. [15] In 1873 these chandeliers were replaced by President Grant with the even more elaborate "crystal" fixtures shown in plate 70.

Whatever the scale of the fixture, burners varied only slightly in size. Because of problems related to gas pressure, the method of obtaining more light was to increase the number of burners per chandelier rather than to enlarge the size of the individual burner. There appear to have been 26 burners on each of these fixtures.

Courtesy of The White House. (click on image for a PDF version)

In 1841, George Albert Lewis's parents moved to a new house at the corner of Walnut and 116th streets in Philadelphia. Many years later Lewis painted from memory this watercolor of the third story front chamber that he and his bride occupied in the house from 1851 to 1855. [16]

The gas pendant depicted in the view probably dates from 1841, as the neoclassical treatment of the two branches and, particularly, the arrangement of tiers of prisms, are typical of many chandeliers equipped with either gas burners, candles, or Argand lamps from the 1820s through the 1840s. The prisms of this bronze-finished chandelier were of the flattened triangular type, popular after about 1840. As the stems of chandeliers were, like the shafts of lamps, often called "pillars," the prisms used to decorate this portion of a fixture were referred to as "pillar icicles" at that time. In 1834, the New England Glass Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts, had produced the first "pillar icicles" made in America. [17] By 1846, pillar icicles arranged in tiers adorned the chandeliers in the ladies' saloon of the first vessel to be illuminated by gas, the Long Island Sound steamboat Atlantic. [18] An excellent example of this type hangs in the Office of the Senate Minority Leader in the U.S. Capitol. It has eight branches and five tiers of prisms.

The Lewis watercolor provides important evidence that suspended gas lamps were used at least occasionally in the 1850s, if not earlier. In this instance, the lamp appears to be attached to a pipe extension rather than to a hose. [19] In any case, the shade, apparently made either of green silk or of fluted paper, cannot have offered great security against the accident of fire.

Courtesy of Oliver E. Allen, Pelham, New York, photograph by William Swan. (click on image for a PDF version)

This 1846 print is the earliest illustration of gas fixtures known to date that can be definitely ascribed to American manufacture. [20] John Henry Frederick Sachase, one of the leading artist-designers in the Cornelius establishment during the 1840s, may well have designed the fixtures on this plate.

In the caption "Gas Fittings &c/Executed by/Cornelius and Son/Philadelphia," the "&c" refers to the oil-burning lamp and candelabrum at the lower left and lower right respectively. What appear to be candles in the chandelier and bracket are gas burners masked by ceramic or opaque glass sleeves to resemble candles. [21] The lavishly ornamented style of these Neo-Renaissance lighting fixtures prefigures the rage for luxurious splendor (equated in the popular mind with rich ornamentation) that prevailed during the 1850s.

The Cornelius firm was preeminent among American manufacturers of gas fixtures for many years. [22] Christian Cornelius, the founder of the firm, emigrated from Amsterdam in 1783. [23] He established himself in Philadelphia as a silversmith and, later, as a manufacturer of plated ware. [24] By the mid-1820s, the firm was engaged in making lamps and chandeliers, and by 1833 silverplating was no longer mentioned in the Philadelphia Directory listing. [25] On February 8, 1836, the Philadelphia Gas Company began operations [26] "and as soon as the use of gas was introduced, the firm began to turn their attention to supplying the necessary appliances for its consumption." [27] In 1831 Robert Cornelius, (1809-1893) joined his father in partnership. From then until Christian Cornelius's death in 1851, the firm was known as either "Cornelius and Son" or "Cornelius and Company." [28] The career of this important firm after 1850 will be noted later.

Robert Cornelius, who headed the firm from 1851 until 1876, studied chemistry under the distinguished chemist and geologist, Professor Gerard Troost (1776-1850), and drawing under the noted Philadelphia drawing master, James Cox (1751-1834). [29] He had a decidedly scientific and mechanical bent and perfected devices for facilitating his manufacturing processes. In 1841 he secured the first American patent for an improvement to a gas jet. He also invented and patented a solar lamp for burning lard or sperm oil. His interest in chemistry led him to develop improved processes for electroplating and he was among the first to use bromine in daguerreotypy, thereby reducing the required exposure time from ten minutes to ten seconds. In October or early November 1839, Robert Cornelius was one of the first people ever to photograph a human countenance — his own. [30]

Reprinted from Thomas U [stick] Walter, and J. Jay Smith, A Guide to Workers in Metal and Stone. . . . Philadelphia, Carey and Hart, 1846, Plate XVII. Library of Congress. (click on image for a PDF version)

This Sarony and Major lithograph recorded the interior of the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City during the distribution of the American Art Union prizes in 1847. In contrast to the ornate examples by Cornelius and Son, this illustration shows that many gas fixtures used in the 1840s were simple in design.

The unadorned iron corona suspended from the dome is equipped with short burners of the type called "Scotch tips." The pillar lights flanking the pulpit and the brackets on the gallery parapet are almost equally modest. The corona is not unlike a greatly enlarged version of the gas ring used by Rembrandt Peale at his Museum in Baltimore, when he gave the first public demonstration of gaslighting in America on April 23, 1816. [31] Later the same year, gaslighting was also demonstrated at Charles Willson Peale's museum on the second floor of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Before the Broadway Tabernacle (built in 1836) was demolished in 1857, an elaborate chandelier had replaced the corona.

The use of such unpretentious gas rings with "Scotch tips" evidently persisted for some years. A wood engraving of Chickering's Hall in Boston, made in 1869, shows a fixture similar to the one in the 1847 view. In that interior the elaborate architectural treatment of the hall and the elegance of its other lighting fixtures, contrast oddly with the gas ring. Chickering Hall was fitted with brackets each having a pair of shaded branches with clusters of gas candles above. Possibly the gas ring was a temporary fixture added to give extra light for the rehearsal shown in the wood engraving. [32]

Reprinted from Distribution of the American Art-Union Prizes, Broadway Tabernacle, 1847, 340 Broadway near Worth Street, a Sarony and Major lithograph published by John P. Ridner, courtesy of The J. Clarence Davies Collection, Museum of the City of New York. (click on image for a PDF version)

Richard Caton Woodville's painting titled "Politics in an Oyster House" dates from 1848. The artist clearly shows the plain accoutrements of the modest establishment, including, the severely simple iron pipe gas elbow on the rear wall of the booth. Such fixtures, and iron pipe gas T's like the one with Scotch tips shown in the frontispiece, were the plainest models made. They continued in use until the end of the gas era both in very inexpensive and unpretentious buildings and in starkly utilitarian structures such as prisons, mills, manufactories, and even some hospitals and schools.

Courtesy of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. (click on image for a PDF version)

The floral and foliate ornaments of this chandelier are typical of the mid-19th century fondness for natural forms treated in a manner derived, often somewhat distantly, from 18th-century Rococo precedents.

The particular pattern of the branches, based on the morning-glory vine, was evidently very popular, if one may judge by the number of surviving examples. Formerly, at least four chandeliers with branches of this same casting hung in Quarters One at Springfield Armory in Massachusetts, and there was at least one of the type in the Moses Myers House in Norfolk, Virginia. [33] Except for two minor details, one of which is merely an inversion of a small decorative element, the two parlor chandeliers once at Springfield Armory and a pair of chandeliers formerly in the John Duval Howard House at 209 West Monument Street in Baltimore and now in the Maryland Historical Society's Thomas and Hugg Room were identical. [34] Two other museums, the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, D. C., and the Missouri Historical Society, each have a chandelier with branches of this same morning-glory pattern. [35] Another excellent example is in the parlor of the Vassal-Craigie-Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The James T. Johnston House in Alexandria, Virginia, has a four-light example of this pattern and once had matching wall brackets. The Ebenezer Maxwell Mansion in Philadelphia possesses a fine pair of two-light brackets with branches of the morning-glory pattern.

One last example, the parlor chandelier of the Thomas Jefferson Southard House in Richmond, Maine, should be cited, especially for the remarkable finish of its spun brass parts. They are "damasked" in a floral pattern, blue on gold, like the blade of a presentation sword. A contemporary account of the manufacture of such fixtures records:

Some of the ornamental work is painted in parti-colors to please fanciful tastes; some is bronzed with different shades; while other work is tastefully enameled or covered with a coating of fine gold. There are also rooms . . . appropriated to the workers in artistic bronze, while others are occupied by those who are employed at damask work, in which the chief agents are lacquer and acids. [36]

When found in Baltimore a few years ago, this chandelier was painted white. The fact that paint remover did not damage it attests to the excellence of the original finish, now restored. Even a black and white photograph shows the contrast between the gloss of the lacquered spun brass parts and the matte gilding of the cast ornaments and branches. Such contrasts played a major part in the effect produced by brass chandeliers of the 1840s and 1850s. It is incorrect to refinish or produce them in one tone of gilt without any interplay between bright and matte surfaces.

This type of chandelier had either four or six branches of the morning-glory pattern and ornamental vertical chains. However, several of them differ noticeably in detail, giving evidence that the parts were interchangeable, thus allowing the manufacturer or local gasfitters to assemble to suit individual orders. It is significant that the often cited principle of interchangeable parts, first applied in 1800 by Eli Whitney to the manufacture of firearms, was also applied to the manufacture of gas fixtures. As noted by the Cornelius and Baker firm:

All the screws of the different classes that are turned out of this establishment are made of one size. If the branch of a chandelier exported by this house to China should find its way to Russia, it would fit exactly into any of the chandeliers in the Kremlin. [37]

The four ornamental chains once supplied with this chandelier have been lost. The spiral sleeve masking the main gas pipe is a modern reproduction, as well as the gas keys and supports for the shades. The original keys which have survived on the example at the Missouri Historical Society (mentioned earlier) are larger. On the other hand, the original shades had necks of a much smaller diameter. Shades with throats the diameter of those shown here, 3-1/2 inches, were not made until after 1876.

From the author's collection, photograph by Jack E. Boucher. (click on image for a PDF version)

This detail of the chandelier shown in the previous plate reveals the basic structure to which the ornamental elements were added. The brass parts of the fully assembled chandelier were supported by plain iron gas pipe, as seen here. (The holes in the pipe were made by an impatient electrician threading wire through the fixture). The button-like object between the branch in the foreground and that at the right is a plug sealing the outlet for a threaded jet to which the hose of a gas table lamp could be attached. All the cast ornaments of this chandelier are attached by screws to the spun brass parts.

Because these branches match the branch castings on some of the fixtures in Quarters One at Springfield Armory, a tentative attribution of this fixture might be made to the New York firm of Starr, Fellows and Company.

However, it must be noted that the catalog, dated 1856, states that the firm began making gas fixtures "only about six years since" (e.g. 1850) whereas the house at the Springfield Armory was fitted with gas at its completion in 1846. [38]

From the author's collection, photograph by Jack E. Boucher. (click on image for a PDF version)