Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology (review)

Lengthening the Day: A History of Lighting Technology. By Brian Bowers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xv+221. $45.

Anyone who lights a candle during a power outage can begin to understand what a dramatic impact electric lighting has had on our lives. Brian Bowers, the author of this book, has not only lit candles but also tried out many of the other lighting devices used by earlier generations. While doing so, he became fascinated with how each of these devices came to be developed and how each one worked, and eventually he wrote Lengthening the Day about what he learned.

First and foremost, this is a survey of different lighting developments, which have been numerous and extremely varied over the last two hundred years. Bowers, an engineer, gives due recognition to the role of "teams" of inventors, research departments, and engineers in the innovation process. It becomes clear to the reader that efforts to improve lighting devices have occurred for many different reasons: both makers and users have desired lights that were safe, long-lasting, economical, easy to maintain, steady (that is, not flickering), and of appropriate brightness for their function. It is amazing to learn how long it took to obtain a single one of these goals, let alone several at the same time. And, according to Bowers, scientists and engineers continue to strive toward their more perfect realization even today.

In addition to tracing each development from the standpoint of when and where it was invented, and by whom, Bowers devotes much of his book to the scientific principles behind each new lighting development: Each is discussed in terms of what chemistry or physics or mathematical knowledge inventors or engineers needed to have in order to make an improvement operable. The description of lighting developments is treated chronologically, progressing from oil and candles to gas to electric lighting. Much emphasis is given to the evolution of and variations in electric lighting. Indeed, two-thirds of the book is devoted to this topic, and clearly this is Bowers's passion and area of deepest knowledge.

It is also important to mention here the British perspective. Bowers is a curator at the Science Museum in South Kensington, and most of the illustrations--both of actual lighting devices and of historical images showing lighting devices in context--come from the Science Museum's collections. While Bowers does mention Thomas Edison and other American inventors, most of his discussions of manufacture, dissemination, and use, as well as of social attitudes, draw from British examples.

Bowers's thesis is this: While lighting has developed continuously over the last two hundred years, people have not always embraced new technologies. This is a worthwhile and lofty thesis, but Bowers unfortunately delivers it in only the most cursory way, and this is the major shortcoming of Lengthening the Day. Bowers states in the introduction that "In most technologies the old is quickly superseded by the new. With lighting, however, the old is often retained even though we know the new is more efficient" (p. 5). In fact, when we are dealing with technology in the home, old technologies are never quickly superseded by the new. There are many reasons for this, including cultural traditions, personal values and attitudes, individual visions of what "home" means, the dynamics between women and technology, the role of servants, and attitudes toward consumerism. Susan Strasser's Never Done: A History of American Housework (1982) and David Nye's Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (1990) discuss new lighting technologies with a much better understanding of these issues.

While Bowers includes several lengthy personal reminiscences, they are not well integrated into the text and often seem like awkward appendages to the main story about the progression of new developments and how each one worked. Historians of technology will find this a useful survey with insightful discourse on how lighting technology works. Those readers looking...