Early Twentieth-Century Lamp Manufacturers

This table lists well known American lamp manufacturers of the early twentieth century, their locations, dates of operation, and marks. Many of the manufacturers listed here also worked in furniture, metalcraft, and other decorative arts. Manufacturer Location Dates of Operation Mark Bradley & Hubbard Meriden, Connecticut 1852–1940 Craftsman, Gustav Stickley Syracuse, New York 1901–1915 Classique […]

Tiffany Studios

Tiffany Studios, owned by glassmaker and artist Louis Comfort Tiffany, made lamps from about 1891 to 1928. It made many types of lamps for electric bulbs, kerosene, and oil. Tiffany was making student lamps, blown-glass oil lamps, and hanging fixtures with leaded glass globes by 1898. Bronze table and floor lamp bases were introduced in […]

Handel Lamps

Although Tiffany lamps are the most famous, many other glass-shaded lamps were made in the early twentieth century. Handel lamps made by Philip Handel are considered among the finest. In 1893 Handel bought out his partner, Adolph Eyden, and in 1903 changed his glass-decorating company’s name to The Handel Company. The firm closed in 1936. […]

Arts and Crafts

In the early years of the twentieth century, lamps in the Arts and Crafts style were made with hammered copper, bronzed metal, or oak bases and with mica, colored glass, or woven-willow lampshades. The uncomplicated metalwork designs, straight lines, and geometric shapes of the Arts and Crafts style contrasted with the organic, curved, floral art […]

Manufacturers of Decorative Lighting Fixtures

This table lists significant manufacturers of decorative lighting that started in the 1800s, their locations, the dates they were active, and the styles of lamps they made. Manufacturer and Location Dates of Manufacture Comments Boston & Sandwich Glass Works Sandwich, Massachusetts 1825-1888 Glass lamps Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Company Meriden, Connecticut 1875-c.1940 Pierced-metal and bent-glass […]

Aladdin Lamps

Kerosene lamps became popular after the start of the modern petroleum industry in the middle of the nineteenth century. The lamps of the 1890s used round wicks with air supplied to the flame through a central tube. In 1905 a German kerosene lamp was made with a mantle that fit over the burner to give […]

Whale Oil Lamps

Whale oil was important as a fuel for lamps during the nineteenth century. It was used in homes, for street lighting, in lighthouse beacons, and even for locomotive headlights. The great demand for whale oil helped create the giant whaling industry in America. The demand for whale oil declined about 1840. The common whale oil […]

Kerosene lamps

Kerosene, also called coal oil, was the best of the oils used for light. About 1850, Samuel M. Kier of Pittsburgh made lamps that burned kerosene he distilled from oil that oozed out of the earth and puddled on the ground. When Colonel Edwin L. Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania in 1859, the first economical […]

Lustres

There are several dictionary meanings for the word lustre (sometimes spelled luster), but to a lamp collector it is an elaborate type of candlestick, probably with arms, that is decorated with hanging glass prisms. Cut glass prisms and drops probably were first made in England and Ireland. Some of the lustres that were popular during […]

Rushlights

The rushlight is another early lighting devices that used a flame. Rushlights were made from the pith of cat-o’-nine-tails and other reeds that were peeled, dried, and then soaked in fat or grease. The fatted rush was held at an angle in the tweezer-like end of the rushlight holder. The rushlight burned with a clear, […]