Historic Nantucket
29
wich Glassworks advertised a new type of lamp as a "high blown stem lamp." This led to the invention of a practical lamp for general purposes in which the flame would be 7-10 inches above the sur face on which it stood. Now the light would shine down on the surface not simply across it. These new table lamps featured an elongated blown glass stem. At first, this central hollow shaft was rather awkward and fragile, so without lowering the height of the lamp, the shape and weight of the base were altered to make it less likely to tip. Next, the free blown spherical font was elongated to a pearshape and its base became a series of ascending steps. With time, the middle column was shortened until it was just a small hollow knob, and finally a solid, thin wafer, which then served on ly to attach the font to the pressed base. In the 1840's both base and font were pressed and joined while hot with a glass wafer; and by 1876, Atterbury in Pittsburgh, adver tised that they could finally press lamps in one part, which made them "stronger." The evolution of the detachable burner, which began as a cork insert to hold the wick vertically, later became a tin, brass or pewter threaded burner which screwed into a collar affixed to the glass font. Fluid lamps were often elaborately made but worked on a simple principle. Oil rose through the wick by capillary action and was consumed with much odor and smoke. They were made by many companies; however, the two most prolific were New England Glass Company of East Cambridge, Mass. (established 1818), and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Co. of Sandwich, Mass. (1825). There were no design patents for these lamps, so attribution after 1825 becomes rather complicated. From 1828 onwards, with the American invention of the glass pressing machine, lamps were manufactured in a staggering number of patterns. The whale oil lamp was an essentially American innovation which combined ingenuity and practicality in a utilitarian object of unique importance to the history of lighting devices in America. For nearly fifty years it had an enormous impact on the quality of light - and life.
