NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Gaslighting in America
A Guide for Historic Preservation
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PLATES
Polychromed Gothic Revival fixtures from Cornelius and Sons catalogue,
probably 1876. |
Plate 80 |
The 7-1/2-foot high standard and brackets shown here
in the undated Cornelius and Sons catalogue were meant to be
ecclesiastical fixtures, polychromed with accents of red and blue. They
were probably designed by J. M. Beesley. [130]
A precedent for this polychromed, or "decorated" standard of
ivy-ornamented Gothic Revival pattern (and also for the use of large
coronas in church lighting) was set at least as early as 1853, by the
use of similar gas standards in the restoration of the 15th-century St.
Botolph's Church in Boston, Lincolinshire. That major English parish
church installation was illustrated and described in the Illustrated
London News as follows:
The arrangement of the lights is novel and
successful. Instead of the usual plain of solitary brackets scattered
ineffectively over the church, there are rich brass standards, each
bearing a considerable number of jets, and producing a vista of light.
Over the font is suspended a magnificent corona bearing nearly a hundred
lights. The adaptation of the modern invention of gas to ancient
churches, so as not to destroy the effect of their architectural
structure by incongruous fittings, has long been one of the most vexed
problems of church restoration. The most fastidious stickler for ancient
precedent would acknowledge that the richly-decorated standards and the
crown of light at the western end harmonise so entirely with the whole
building in its restored aspect, that they might almost be deemed part
of the original design. [131]
Coronas such as that installed by Cornelius and Sons
in the Columbus Avenue Universalist Church in Boston in 1873 and the one
(probably by Mitchell, Vance and Company) that hung in Trinity Church,
Boston from 1877 until the 1930s were apparently popular for major
American Victorian Gothic churches of the 1860s and 1870s. The original
model for them was probably the magnificent corona given in 1168 by
Friedrich Barbarossa to Charlemagne's Palatine Chapel at Aachen
(Aix-la-Chapelle). [132]
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Courtesy of The Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Gothic Revival brackets from Archer and Pancoast Company catalogue,
probably 1876. |
Plate 81 |
The Archer and Pancoast Manufacturing Company had a
prominent display at the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia.
This plate shows that the New York firm, founded by Ellis S. Archer,
competed with Cornelius and Sons in the church fixture field with their
own version of the Gothic Revival ivy pattern, albeit some of their
burners had shades instead of being left unshaded in the more
conventionally "Gothic" manner. These brackets were "decorated" in gilt,
red, and blue. The rather prickly silhouettes of the ivy leaves suited
the taste of the 1870s for stylized outlines. This plate is one of a
series of 110 now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, all but the last
three of which are lithographed in color. Among the lithographers are
Brett Fairchild and Company, Brett and Company, and Schumacher and
Ettlinger. The plate numbers ruin at least as high as 262, so there may
well have once been additional chromolithographs now lost. The extant
plates include illustrations of such less frequently encountered types
of fixtures as "toilets" (chandeliers suspended from brackets for use at
dressing tables), cigar lighters, and reflectors as well as the more
often illustrated chandeliers, brackets, lamps, pendants, and
pillars.
The previous history of the firm that did business
under the name of the Archer and Pancoast Manufacturing Company from
1870 until it ceased operations in 1900 has already been traced (see
plates 21 and 45 of this report). During the 1860s and 1870s it was
certainly the principal New York rival of Mitchell, Vance and Company,
and in 1876 seven of its fixtures were illustrated in an article that
described the firm as follows: "Archer and Pancoast M'F'G Co.,
Designers, and Manufacturers of Gasaliers, Candelabra, Artistic Bronzes,
Etc... one of the largest and most popular manufacturers of this class
of goods..., has grown to immense proportions." [133]
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Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Elisha Whittlesey Fund, 1951. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Pendants and brackets from Archer and Pancoast Company catalogue,
probably 1876. |
Plate 82 |
These angular bronze-finished Archer and Pancoast
hall pendants clearly show the reaction against the earlier Neo-Rococo
style that came about during the 1860s and continued during the 1870s
under the stylistic misnomer, "Eastlake." Nothing in these designs can
be called Neo-Grec. The pendant at the upper left, no. 905, is decidedly
eclectic. It has the angularity of the Eastlake manner, combined with
putti (in a rather disconsolate looking crouch) who look like refugees
from the earlier, more romantic style of the 1850s. The pendants vary in
length from 42 to 52 inches. Note the smoke bells and the single set
screws securing the shades. A hall pendant similar in general style to
these hangs in the hall of the restored Mark Twain House in Hartford,
Connecticut. That house was originally completed in 1874. [134]
The two brackets seem also to refer back to an
earlier romanticism. One of the figurines appears to be a Greek evzone,
perhaps Marco Bozzaris, the hero of Fitz-Greene Halleck's once famous
poem of that name. The other is in female oriental garb, possibly
representing Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh.
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Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Elisha Whittlesey Fund, 1951. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Center slide chandeliers and bracket from Archer and Pancoast Company
catalogue, probably 1876. |
Plate 83 |
The Archer and Pancoast plate no. 224 shows two
chandeliers and a single bracket finished in bronze with touches of
gilding. The Neo-Grec center-slide chandelier at the left could have
been intended for either a library, a dining room, or a back parlor. It
has none of the specific symbolism that signified "appropriateness" as
that term was understood by style-conscious Victorians. The chandelier
at the right has minor details that relate to the Eastlake manner as it
was interpreted commercially in America. It was almost certainly
intended for use in a dining room, since the stag's heads above the
branches were meant to represent edible game. The left-hand chandelier
measured 5 feet high by just under 3 feet wide, and the one at the right
was 4 feet 4 inches high with a spread of 2 feet 2 inches. Presumably
the heights were measured with the center slides closed. Note that all
burners were counted when describing center-slide fixtures: thus, a
"seven-light" center-slide fixture had six branches plus the central
burner.
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Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Elisha Whittlesey Fund, 1951. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Engraving of center-slide chandelier by Archer and Pancoast Company,
1876. |
Plate 84 |
Competition in the manufacture of center-slide
chandeliers was evidently keen. Mitchell, Vance and Company boasted of
the "superiority over all others" of their "patent double slide centre
light chandelier," while Archer and Pancoast dubbed the "extension
centre light attachment" they patented in May 1874, with the inspiring
name "Excelsior." This illustration of a chandelier incorporating an
"Excelsior" center-light was published in London by the Art
Journal in 1876. [135] The accompanying
text under the heading "American Art-Manufactures" reads as follows:
We present a design for a gas-chandelier selected
from the exhibition-rooms of Messrs. Archer, Pancoast and Company, of
New York. It is in the style of the time Louis XIV [a stylistic
attribution that would have astonished the Sun King], and is intended
for the drawing-room or library. With the extension centre-light
attachment, which is known as the "Excelsior," and patented under that
name in May 1874, it is also especially adapted for use in the
dining-room. The attachment admits of the lowering of the centre-light,
and argand burner, from the main body of the chandelier to any desirable
distance. The mechanism of the attachment is plain and simple in
construction, and its operation is free from many of the intricate
contrivances peculiar to slide-chandeliers as heretofore made.... The
general effect of the chandelier is light and graceful and yet the
central standard renders it unusually strong and massive. The ornamental
work is of the finest workmanship, and the whole is richly gilt. It was
designed by Mr. J. F. Travis. [136] The
centre-light attachment was awarded a silver medal, at the recent fair
of the American Institute; and a similar medal was also given to the
firm for the superior quality of their work....
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From the Library of
Congress. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Chandeliers from Archer and Pancoast Company catalogue, probably 1876. |
Plate 85 |
Plate no. 262 in the Archer and Pancoast series shows
two gilded chandeliers probably designed for drawing or reception rooms.
Possibly the example on the left would have been called "in the style of
the time of Louis XIV," and it is probable that the one on the right
would have been so described in the 1870s. The age of accurate copying
of past styles had not yet arrived; free interpretation of historic
modes was still the prevailing practice. The six-light chandelier was 53
inches high and had a spread of 31 inches. The two claws opposite the
set screw can clearly be seen engaging the bases of the two right-hand
shades, a detail that is rarely illustrated. The 12-light gas candle
chandelier at the right was 51 inches high and 28 inches wide.
The right hand chandelier is one of the very few
Archer and Pancoast fixtures shown with gas candles. None of the 92
fixtures of all varieties shown in the Cornelius and Sons catalogue has
gas candles, and only one (a church chandelier) of the 12 fixtures
illustrated in the Mitchell, Vance and Company Centennial
Catalogue (really more a brochure than a full-fledged catalogue) has
them. When gas candles were used during the 1860s and 1870s, they were
most often in dining rooms. Had this chandelier been intended for a
dining room, however, it would probably have had a center-slide light.
Aside from their use in church fixtures, gas candles appear to have been
reserved almost exclusively for dwellings of some consequence until
nearly the end of the century. Then they were often used on combination
gas and electric fixtures. [137] In this plate
the shape of the burners and the glass bobeches and porcelain or opaque
glass "candle" sleeves can be clearly seen.
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Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Elisha Whittlesey Fund, 1951. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Reflectors from Archer and Pancoast Company catalogue, probably 1876. |
Plate 86 |
The last three uncolored plates in the Archer and
Pancoast series illustrate reflectors. Patents for reflectors were
registered as early as 1860 (by another manufacturer, Isaac P. Frink),
but the devices seem to have reached their greatest proliferation during
the 1870s. They were essentially a sideline of Archer and Pancoast's
business, but the firm obviously felt that aspect of the trade
sufficiently worthwhile to warrant securing patents based on minor
variations of the basic patents secured by another manufacturer.
Reflectors were lined with either mirrored glass or silvered metal and
were used wherever intense, concentrated light was required. They were
made in various sizes, depending on the area to be illuminated. Note
that Archer and Pancoast's customers were instructed as follows: "In
ordering Reflectors or Chandeliers, send size of room to be lighted, and
state if they are to be inserted In or suspended From ceiling." The
large picture, "No. 900Double Cone Reflector" appears to have been
designed for insertion in a ceiling. Presumably inserted fixtures were
connected with vents to draw off the heat. The "Ornamental Double Cone
Reflector" at the lower left was intended "For Stores, Churches, Reading
Rooms, &c." and could be fitted for either "Gas or Kerosene," as
could the "Octagonal Show Window Reflector" and the "Plain Double Cone
Reflector" adjoining it. The octagonal shade on the bracket at the lower
right was "Lined with Silver Plated Glass." The show window reflector
was used in connection with an eight-burner gas "T" and met a
comparatively new demand engendered by the rapidly increasing use of
large sized plate glass in store windows. [138]
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Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Elisha Whittlesey Fund, 1951. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Yale classroom with reflector chandeliers. |
Plate 87 |
The classroom used by Professor Othiniel Charles
Marsh (1831-1899) at Yale was lighted by what appear to be Archer and
Pancoast's Plain Double Cone Reflectors (cf. plate 86). The pioneer
paleontologist's students evidently required more light than the stained
glass windows of the Peabody Museum lecture room could admit in order to
take their notes. Observe that the striations of the reflecting surfaces
of the shade are at right angles to those of the inner cone, a device to
increase the reflective power of the light.
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Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of
Natural History, Yale University. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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A reconstruction of reflectors used at the Centennial Exhibition,
Philadelphia, 1876. |
Plate 88 |
The manufacturing business established in 1857 by
Isaac P. Frink specialized in making reflectors. Between April 10, 1860,
and April 3, 1883, Frink registered at least 13 patents for reflectors.
[139] The I. P. Frink brochure for 1883,
referred to "Frink's Patent Reflectors for gas, kerosene, electric, or
day-light" and called his device "the Great Church Light for churches,
halls, theaters, depots, stores, and public buildings generally."
Frink's improved silver-plated corrugated crystal glass reflectors were
praised as the best reflectors available. Because gas was listed first
as a source of light, it seems safe to assume that most, or at least a
majority, of the Frink reflectors were fitted with gas burners. The
brochure concludes with a list of 406 presumably satisfied customers and
an analysis of that list provides an excellent indication of the uses of
most of the reflectors. The list included 243 testimonials from
churches, most of them nonliturgical in their form of worship; for
instance, 111 were from Methodist churches. Churches using older forms
of liturgy tended to favor the Gothic Revival styles.
Theaters formed the next largest building category
and together with halls numbered 51. Among the 15 government buildings
listed were the statehouses of Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania, as well as the Canadian Houses of Parliament in Ottawa.
Among the structures furnished with I. P. Frink reflectors by 1883 were:
railroad stations (including Grand Central Depot in New York City),
steamship piers (including the French Line and Inman Line), market
buildings, armories, locomotive works, and other factories, exhibition
halls (including Mechanics' Hall in Boston), business and commerce
buildings (including the New York Life Insurance Company and Tiffany's
store), and the picture galleries of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the earlier Century Club building in New
York.
The fixture shown here is an electrically lighted
reconstruction by the Smithsonian Institution of the type of fixture
used to light the main exhibition building at the 1876 Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia. The originals, of course, were gaslighted
and the reconstruction, made for the Smithsonian exhibition titled "1876
A Centennial Exhibition," is based on photographs. The original fixtures
appear to have been Frink reflectors, although the Centennial is not
listed among the installations in the 1883 Frink brochure.
One use of reflectors has yet to be
mentionedthe illumination of billiard tables. A fixture with three
reflecting shades may be seen over the billiard table at the restored
Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut. [140]
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Courtesy of the Smithsonian
Institution. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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Milwaukee Department Store Interior, ca. 1870. |
Plate 89 |
This detail from a W. H. Sherman stereograph of
Chapman's Dry Goods Emporium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, shows a typical
four-light chandelier ca. 1870. Another view of the same store shows one
of the long aisles leading to the dome lighted by at least six
chandeliers matching this one. Although reflectors might have provided
more efficient light for shop interiors, it is probable that they did
not conform to the public's notion of elegance. Views of store interiors
made during the 1870s almost invariably show more or less ornamental
chandeliers. It therefore seems likely that the use of reflectors in
commercial emporia was confined to the display windows.
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From the author's
collection. (click on image
for a PDF version)
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myers/plate9.htm
Last Updated: 30-Nov-2007
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