Identification Guides
Early Lighting Devices
The easiest way to date a lamp is to find out which type of fuel was used. Animal fats, vegetable fats, whale oil, kerosene, electricity, and other types of fuel have successfully provided light.
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| Photo: Skinner | Photo: Green Valley |
| Grease, oils, mixtures of turpentine and alcohol, and other fuels lit the nineteenth-century home. A burner was added to this free-blown glass fluid lamp made in Sandwich, Massachusetts, about 1875. The burner determined what fuel was used. | The Boston & Sandwich Company made many types of glass lamps. This is a fluid lamp that burned camphene or turpentine. |
