Blog

Jul 14, 2023

Miner’s lamp shines a light on the way things were

By [email protected] | on

By [email protected] | on February 16, 2023

This miner's lamp, made by the Justrite Manufacturing Co. of Chicago, probably dates from the 1920s or ’30s. SCOTT SIMMONS / FLORIDA WEEKLY

If there's one thing we can learn from the past, it is this: Much of day-to-day life is easier now than it was decades ago.

There was an enormous amount of labor involved in cooking, cleaning, bathing and even using a restroom in the days before such conveniences as indoor plumbing and electricity became available.

Think of the work involved in hauling the water, cutting the wood or shoveling the coal to heat it and beating out the laundry on a washboard or in a kettle before air-drying it and ironing it with an iron you heated over a fire.

The world was a much darker place in the days before electrical lighting became standard. You couldn't just flip a switch — you needed to have candles, oil or kerosene, and matches on hand.

Of course, our existences today are much more complicated — our grandparents didn't have the interruptions of a 24-hour news cycle, social media or even the complications of traffic.

Your life revolved around home, where you tended a farm or walked to work at a factory or, in the case of this week's discovery, someplace more subterranean — a mine.

This carbide, or acetylene gas, lamp could have mounted on a helmet or hardhat to light a miner's path.

Nowadays, we have high-powered, battery operated lighting, along with regulations to ensure better safety in the mines.

But in the early parts of the last century, an acetylene lamp produced a bright, white light. The lights were used everywhere from lighthouse beacons to headlights on motor vehicles and bicycles.

Acetylene gas is produced when water from the lamp's upper level encounters the calcium carbide stored in the base via a dripping mechanism, according to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, which has similar lamps in its collection. The amount of water flowing into the calcium carbide container could be controlled, with more water producing more gas and a bigger flame when the lamp was lit.

This particular lamp, which friends found stashed in an attic in Lake Worth Beach, was made by Justrite Manufacturing Co. of Chicago, probably in the 1920s or ’30s.

Justrite, founded in 1906, still is in business and is known for making containers to store flammable liquids, as well as safety showers and eyewash stations, protective equipment and other related products.

The lamp, which is about 6 inches high, boasts a brass water tank and other parts, along with a plated metal reflector to ensure a bright beam of light as someone moved through the dark and the damp to mine metals and coal.

Modern cavers still use the lights, and small carbide lamps called "carbide candles" or "smoke r s" are used for blackening rifle sights to reduce glare, online sources say.

I probably would not attempt to use this lamp for illumination, though it does shed light on just how people got by a century ago and more.

The brass on this piece should polish up, so I’ll get the metal cleaner out and gently buff it to a warm glow. It's OK to clean brass, copper and silver — just don't use harsh solvents.

Then the lamp truly can shine a light on the past. ¦

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Δ