American Lucifers: The Dark History of Artificial Light, 1750–1865

by Jeremy Zallen

The myth of light and progress has blinded us. In our electric world, we are everywhere surrounded by effortlessly glowing lights that simply exist, as they should, seemingly clear and comforting proof that human genius means the present will always be better than the past, and the future better still. At best, this is half the story. At worst, it is a lie.

From whale oil to kerosene, from the colonial period to the end of the U.S. Civil War, modern, industrial lights brought wonderful improvements and incredible wealth to some. But for most workers, free and unfree, human and nonhuman, these lights were catastrophes. This book tells their stories. The surprisingly violent struggle to produce, control, and consume the changing means of illumination over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries transformed slavery, industrial capitalism, and urban families in profound, often hidden ways. Only by taking the lives of whalers and enslaved turpentine makers, match-manufacturing children and coal miners, night-working seamstresses and the streetlamp-lit poor—those American lucifers—as seriously as those of inventors and businessmen can the full significance of the revolution of artificial light be understood.

Genres: History, Economics, Nonfiction, Science, Civil War, American History, Historical

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2019

Reviews

[Steven Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was extremely interesting. It certainly taught me a lot about the relationship between antebellum industrial capitalism and slavery that made it feel comparable to contemporary labor regimes. Zallen argues successfully that the received wisdom of the civil war — the industrial north defeating the agrarian south as a matter of destiny and progress — does not capture the actual labor systems spreading across the regions, or their interdependence.

The book also encouraged me to think about the relationship between new technologies and so-called progress. I did not fully buy Zallen’s argument that for workers new technology never improved life quality. (Perhaps I am being uncharitable to him here.) I would be interested in hearing a discussion of “progress for whom/in what ways” at greater length here. I suspect this would have been difficult given the methodology here, ie case studies of workplaces extended with periodical/business archive.

I was also left very curious about the relationship between the American insurance industry, early industrial capitalism, and slavery, and look forward to reading “Investing in Life” (Murphy) in the future.

I did sometimes dislike the writing here, finding some passages used distractingly abstract dramas. For instance, Zallen describes the moral hazard of slave life insurance in the context of coal mines in a complex analogy involving “fictive slaves” whose real counterparts were trapped by the “necromancy of life insurance.” What enslavers did to these people is bad enough without this sort of fanciful language distracting me. I found Zallen wrote like this somewhat often but not enough to detract from the project.

Also, I found the chapter centering pigs rather than the laborers working among them creating a sort of equivalence that I found inappropriate (and at odds with the extensive discussion of other laborers amid animals, e.g. whalers).

Altogether, I am very glad I read this. It is very worthwhile both in helping me understand the past and in thinking about the present.

[Jess Carr · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent! Although an academic history that carefully unites archival evidence of the dangers and slave labor that accompanied the transition to artificial light in the US, Zallen is a beautiful storyteller who brings the past to life for anyone. It is a very human tale of technologies that reveals so much that is and was invisible about the production of light on men and women; white and black; free, enslaved, and enslaver. Zallen’s prose and narratives of personal experiences - physical, emotional, and political - make this an archetype of historical creative non-fiction that reads as engagingly as any good historical fiction.

[Chelsea Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another book I had to read for grad school and WOW! This tells the gruesome story of the history of artificial light in the U.S.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It reads like a novel and pulls no punches or sugar coats anything! If you are easily offended skip this book, if you don't like reading graphic very dark history then don't read it. I think everyone should this book, you will never flip a light switch again without thinking about this book. There are parts of this book that will be ingrained into my memory.

This book covers a huge time line that spans whaling to get whale oil through post civil war era and the use of crude oil. This is Zallens dissertation for his PhD, if your going to write a dissertation this is how you do it!

I can't say anything bad about this book, it is very good, very well written, a read that will stay with you for awhile. This book changed me, it literally changed my life! Do yourself a favor and read this book!

[Julie Greene]

An excellent, powerfully-written study of the means of making light before electricity--from candles made of cow or whale fat, to turpentine and phosphorus. Zallen knows how to tell a story and his book expertly connects the history of capitalism to labor, technology, and environmental history. Some in my book group found the workers in this tale to be too often passive victims. But capitalism can so overwhelms that to present them otherwise would do an injustice to history. The workers in this book are oppressed indeed--child laborers, enslaved men and women, or 18th century women working all night to make candles in their homes. The tale of children glowing from their work with phosphorus, or having to have their jaws removed due to disease, evoke images of draconian early 19th c. exploitation so intense it's hard to let them go.

[Jason S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is truly a masterpiece. Looks at a wide variety of ways to produce light in the antebellum period and explores their dark sides. Last chapter makes the case that industrial slavery was emerging in the south (salt and coal production in Western Virginia) but the Civil War interrupted that narrative. Fantastic combination of environmental and social history. A truly revealing work of history.

[Pat Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating. Scintillating (get it?) read that appears to have done it’s historical homework (though I have no expertise). Full of fun facts and crazy recontextualizations of the process of industrialization - the unglamorous, often extremely disgusting, and (surprise to no one) dehumanizing/heartbreaking trudge towards our modern world. (another ‘it was racial capitalism all along’ study of history. but one that is very interesting). I’d recommend

[MDVAPA · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an extraordinary book about the material and social relationships between people and energy, and it's written in a deft literary style that makes for a riveting read about a heavy topic.

[Nicole1999 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for HIST 3811

[Wes Gunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject matter but densely written, almost textbook-like.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! He makes the argument that the Atlantic was more than a body of water. It stirred up capitalism, combined merchant and imperial forces, it erected lighthouses, and continued slavery.