IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 14

to retain the sign for decades. The
structure continues to attract controversy. As Cities Service is now a mostly Venezuelan Company, a Boston
City Counselor once proposed the
removal of the sign after President
Chavez insulted President George W.
Bush. On one occasion Citgo wanted to remove its billboard and the
public outcry forced them to back
down. Try to perform this thought
experiment: if the sign never existed
(it actually dates from 1940) and an

Oil streetlights were used in Paris
even in the late 17th century.
oil company proposed erecting a
blinking billboard on Boston's Beacon Street today what might happen?
My guess is that all hell would break
loose, with the affluent residences of
the Back Bay fighting this intrusion of
commercial vulgarity that is totally
out of character with their lovely
neighborhood. Even today there are
advocates for its removal.
The story of this sign is not in
David Nye's new book, but it could
be. I tell it here to convey some of
the complex nature of the history of
urban lighting. Nye guides us with his
usual skill - he's a famous historian
of technology - an American who is
Professor of American Studies at the
University of Southern Denmark. He
is no stranger to the history of electrification: among his best-known books
is Electrifying America, which is a
standard text on how power came
to U.S. cities and rural areas. His
American Technological Sublime is
a classic - it describes how the concept of the natural sublime was adapted by American techno-enthusiasts
into a comparable awe and fear of the
technologies emerging in the 19th and

20th centuries, including for example
the launching of rockets to the moon.
Nye's current effort is slightly
more modest in scope than these
titles. He confines himself here primarily to urban public lighting in American cities for the 120-year period
starting in 1800. To his credit, he contrasts what was taking place in America with comparable developments in
Europe. By public lighting we mean
street lights, neon signs, spotlights,
illuminated bill boards, and
store window displays.
Many believe that the
public lighting of American streets began circa
1820 with the introduction
of gas lighting and that this
grew in importance until
circa 1880 as the system
of incandescent lighting
began to make the inroads, which in
the 20th century would make gas
lighting obsolete. Nye takes us back
before the gas period to explore how
fireworks and torches were used in
urban displays of celebration in the
18th century - these were largely
brought about by the era's power
brokers: the Papacy and monarchs.
Oil streetlights were used in Paris
even in the late 17th century. Note
too that outdoor electric lighting
preceded incandescent bulbs. This
involved electric arc lighting whose
invention dates from around 1810.
It consisted of an arc existing in the
gap between two carbon rods, each
maintained at a different electrical
potential. It found use in street lighting and in the illumination of theaters
fully a decade before Edison's electric lamp. Unlike the incandescent
bulb, its intensity was too high for
household use, but between 1875
and 1910 it was the dominant
form of electrical outdoor lighting.
One of the strengths of Nye's book
is an appendix showing in detail the
various kinds of lighting fixtures:
arc, gas, incandescent, gas lamps
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

with mantles (a metal that when
heated gave a nice glow), carbon
filament, and tungsten lamps. In
general, those institutions in power
controlled city lighting - there is a
comparable deployment of sound
power in cities even up to the present
day as described for example in Alan
Corbin's book Village Bells.
Every major technological innovation has social meaning. Nye tells
us how the electrification of streets
and store windows had great implications for urban life. The Great White
Way of Broadway in New York spread
to other cities. Streets that were
now perceived as safer encouraged
shopping after dark - especially by
women who might work in offices by
day but who now felt free to shop at
night. The illumination of streets had
implications for the underworld: prostitutes, con-artists, and pick pockets
who worked in the shadows now
were moved to the margins of cities.
Nye points out another social consequence: the meager illumination
given to urban areas populated by
the poor, blacks, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants. Also, lighting was
intense in major business districts
giving them a competitive advantage over small, ethnic family-owned
stores in darker neighborhoods.
One topic of Nye's book with
which I was unacquainted has a chapter to itself, Moonlight Towers. This
concerns a period from around 1840
until the early 20th century when
some cities created illumination by
a system that did not require deploying gas pipes or electrical wires. One
or more towers, perhaps a few hundred feet high, were erected in cities,
each bearing a powerful arc light,
supplied by a ground-based generator that could be used to illuminate
acres of urban area below. Because
few of these towers still exist, their
history is little known. However, if you
are in Austin, TX, ask to be shown
theirs - there are over a dozen. A
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JUNE 2019

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

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