Illuminating eighteenth-century lighting

Recently, we've been thinking about what sort of lighting William Paca might have had in his summerhouse - if any at all. Eighteenth-century lighting in general is an interesting topic; everyday activities were governed by each individual's access - but mostly a lack of access! - to lighting.

Which types of candles and fittings would have been used in the house?

Spermaceti candles would have been favored by the Paca household. These were of high quality and would not have been used exclusively. Made from the oil found in the head of a sperm whale, spermaceti candles were described by John Adams in 1785 as giving "the clearest and most beautiful flame of any substance that is known in nature". This is an excerpt from Adams' attempts to convince William Pitt the Younger of the good sense in importing spermaceti candles from American whalers. He wrote, "we are all surprised that you prefer darkness".[1]

If you visit the William Paca House, many of the candlesticks on display are without candles. This is because the house is shown during the day; candles were so valuable that when they were not needed they would have been kept under lock and key.

James Gillray, Lady Godina's Rout, 1796

Notice the candles and the sconce, rather than the feathers and the low necklines. The man at the center of the etching is holding a pair of candlesnuffers. These would be used not to extinguish the flame, but - as this man is perhaps attempting, although he is so distracted that the snuffers are the wrong way up - to trim the candle wick. The cups at the side of the instrument are intended to catch the trimmed wick.

It was in the middle of the eighteenth century that wall lights known as girandoles (or sconces) came into fashion. Girandoles would often be designed in the rococo style, but one commentator from 1762 gives a more precise description: "four-armed cut glass candle-sticks, ornamented with stars and drops, properly called girandoles".[2] The term seems to have been used much more loosely than this. Girandoles were not only fixtures of cut glass, but of lacquered wood, brass, and silver.

Before sconces, most wall mirrors would not have been complete without a pair of metal candle branches attached. The prevalence of these features in early eighteenth century mirrors demonstrates that wall lighting was a very ordinary method of lighting a room from the beginning of the century.[3]

Stand-alone candlesticks were also used in increasing numbers throughout the eighteenth century. From about 1750 they tended to be taller and generally bigger, especially those of silver and Sheffield plate. Sheffield plate candlesticks of this kind are on display at the William Paca House.

Henry Sargent, Tea Party, 1824
(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Chandeliers were a symbol of great extravagance in William Paca's time, but they were nevertheless popular in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.[4] Upon George III's visit to Bulstrode Park in Buckinghamshire, England, in 1779, Mrs Delany wrote "Her Grace had the house lighted up in a most magnificent manner ; the chandelier in the great hall was not lighted before for twenty years".[5] The expense of lighting eight or more candles in one small area of a room would only be borne in exceptional circumstances. Even when many candles could be afforded by a household, they were treated as a precious commodity. The wealthiest of men and women would avoid wasting candles when reading or sewing alone, just as their poorer contemporaries did.

Oil lamps in the home

Oil lamps did not enter the home on any great scale until the early 1780s, when the Argand lamp was invented. The cylindrical wicks in these lamps were placed between inner and outer tubes, allowing air to circulate and facilitating the burning of oil. The lamps allowed for a much brighter, cleaner light - most importantly, with a smokeless flame![6] These lamps still created dirt, unfortunately. Yet before Aimé Argand, a Swiss inventor, created the new lamp oil, lamps had produced far too much sooty smoke to be used in the home.

Oil lamps did not completely replace the candle, however. Quicker burning of oil meant that more oil was burned. This was costly. A lamp could not provide as much light as a single candle for as little money. However, on the same terms, a cluster of candles was no match for a lamp when more light was wanted.[7]

Lighting the streets

William Hogarth, 'Four Times of the Day: Night', 1737. © Trustees of the British Museum

In early eighteenth-century London, before the advent of oil lamps on the streets (from 1750), candles were relied upon to light the way home at night.

Joshua Reynolds, Cupid as Link Boy, c.1771

Link men and boys were hired to illuminate the streets during night-time journeys, or when a thick fog descended upon London. A "link" was a torch made of pitch and tow. These boys had a reputation for deceit - often leading unwitting travelers into dark alleys, where they would be assailed by footpads (thieves who targeted those travelling on foot). You will find such a boy crouching in the left corner of the Hogarth print above. Part of a novella from a 1773 London magazine describes the assumed nature of a link boy; "I recollected that his lordship was deeply in the science of filching, lying, outwitting, cheating, impudence, and other link-boy qualities."[8]

This portrait by Joshua Reynolds, laden with meaning, depicts Cupid disguised as a link boy - with black wings. The boy may appear sad, but he is also mischievous. Just as a link boy would play tricks on his customers, Cupid is unlikely to lead his customers along a simple path to love.

There were many opportunities for street crime at a time when travelers still relied on handheld lamps. The Rowlandson print below is an apt illustration of the pervasiveness of crime in unlit streets. To the far right of the print a woman says, "If this light is not put a stop too [sic] - we must give up our business. We may as well shut up shop." The situation would have been similar in America, though perhaps not so dire as that of the crime-ridden streets of London! William Paca lived in a time of transition - when the old methods of lighting the way through the dark were still in place, but new technologies were making rapid advancements.

Street lamps were of serious importance (for the aforementioned reasons!), and their development was of concern to some of the greatest minds of the time. In his memoirs, Benjamin Franklin wrote of his suggestions for the improvement of American streetlights in 1757; "I therefore suggested the [sic] composing them of four flat panes, with a long funnel above to draw out the smoke, and crevices admitting air below to facilitate the ascent of the smoke; by this means they were kept clean, and did not grow dark in a few hours, as the London lamps do".[9]

Thomas Rowlandson, A Peep at the Gas Lights in Pall-Mall, 1809. © Trustees of the British Museum

A few decades after William Paca left his house in Annapolis, however, oil lamps were being superseded by gas. In 1816, Rubens and Rembrandt Peale organized great displays of gas lighting on a huge scale, making themselves pioneers in the use of gas lighting in America.  Rubens' display of gas lighting in the Peale Museum in Baltimore was a great feat: "By March 1 five hundred feet of soldered tin pipe had been installed, and elegant fixtures, with cut-glass ornamentation, were in place ... a month later they had gas burning in the rooms, blue, clear, and odorless".[11]

Gas lighting was already developing quickly in England, but in Baltimore the Peales created extraordinary displays of light. Rembrandt Peale was active in the creation of the first American company for municipal gas lighting: the Gas Light Company of Baltimore. In gas lighting, Baltimore led the way for Philadelphia - making further trouble for those who worked best in the dark.

Written by OUIIP intern, Elena Porter

Further reading:

Lucy Worsley, 'A Quick History of Domestic Lighting'

Click here to be redirected to a portrait featuring candles and cats; our two favourite subjects combined!

[1] Papers of John Adams, Volume 16: February 1784 - March 1785. Harvard University Press. p.15 (Google Books: link)

[2] Quoted in N. F. Little, "Lighting in Colonial Records", Old-Time New England, vol. 42, no.4 (1952), p.100. Referenced in E. D. Garrett, 'The American home: Part II: Lighting devices and practices', in L. S. Cooke (ed.), Lighting in America: From Colonial Rushlights to Victorian Chandeliers: A New and Expanded Edition. (Pittstown, New Jersey, 1984 (Revised Edition)), The Main Street Press. p.159

[3] R. W. Symonds, 'Eighteenth-Century Lighting Devices: Wall Fittings and Candlesticks', in L. S. Cooke (ed.), Lighting in America: From Colonial Rushlights to Victorian Chandeliers: A New and Expanded Edition. (Pittstown, New Jersey, 1984 (Revised Edition)), The Main Street Press. pp.106-109

[4] R. W. Symonds, 'Eighteenth-Century Lighting Devices: Wall Fittings and Candlesticks',  p.109

[5] J. Fowler and J. Cornforth, English Decoration in the 18th Century (London, 1983), p.222

[6] 'Argand burner', Britannica Academic Edition.

[7] J. Fowler and J. Conforth, English Decoration in the 18th Century, p.224

[8] The London magazine. Or, Gentleman's monthly intelligencer. Vol. XLII, 1773. London [England],  [1747-1783]. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. University of Oxford. 21 July 2014 

[9] Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 1, McCarty & Davis: Philadelphia. p.51.

[11] C. C. Sellers, Charles Willson Peale (New York, 1969). MPublishing, University of Michigan Library. p.379. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.00747.0001.001>

Would the Paca House have kept a cat?

As part of our new 'Ask the Curator' initiative at the William Paca House, we have been researching the likelihood that the Paca House would have kept a cat. If not a cat, we asked, what other animals might have been family favorites? This blog is a place for us to share this research - and hopefully many more interesting findings in the future.

Background

Archaeological evidence from Maryland and Virginia indicates that there were many cats living in this area in the late eighteenth century and earlier. In one seventeenth-century well shaft alone, the remains of thirteen cats were discovered.[1] Many of these cats would have been kept in households to reduce the population of rodents and insects. In wealthier homes they would be fed by servants, and kept away from the family.

Domesticating wild animals

It was during the eighteenth century that pet-keeping for pleasure became commonplace in America and Britain. Pets were referred to as “favorites”; the modern meaning of ‘pet’ was not widely used until the nineteenth century.[2] From the beginning of the eighteenth century wild animals such as squirrels and deer were tamed and taken into the home for the amusement of young children, a phenomenon peculiar to prosperous households in Colonial America (and to the astonishment of their European guests). These animals would be cared for by the family personally, and often at great expense.

Philip Mercier, The Sense of Touch, 1744-47

Contemporary thought on animals

By the late eighteenth century, previously popular sports which encouraged violent treatment of cats were regarded as terribly cruel, with the advent of an intellectual movement towards humane treatment of animals. The earliest legislation against cruelty to animals had come from Puritan Massachusetts in 1648,[3] but this “humane” attitude was not fully and widely established until the 1790s in the early United States and Britain.[4] From then on it became popular for families to keep household animals, so that children may learn the quality of benevolence by caring for their cats and dogs.

Slaves would often own dogs, for hunting, protection, and companionship. This was more common near plantations than in a house such as the William Paca House. Slave owners would not give animals to their slaves as favorites, because ownership of animals indicated authority over the household.[5] Sarah Hand Meacham claims that ‘Chesapeake elites … kept favorites in part because doing so gave them unconscious validation of their right to have slaves’.[6]

Gifts of domestic animals were highly gendered. Women and girls would be given small ‘decorative creatures’ such as birds and squirrels,[7] which they would take care of themselves. Birds were particularly popular because they were thought to be signs against witchcraft,[8] even at the end of the eighteenth century, and unlike the traditional ‘familiar spirits’ thought to be kept by witches.

 
The Annapolis gentleman’s animal of choice: a cat or a dog?

Towards the end of the eighteenth century cats became popular domestic animals amongst urban professionals, merchants, bankers and the like in Britain. While the trend for importing, or capturing and keeping, animals to domesticate was as evident in Colonial America as it was across the Atlantic, cats were rarely the animal of choice. Very few letters and journals from the Chesapeake Bay area mention cats, and there are no advertisements for missing cats in the Maryland Gazette or Virginia Gazette. Significantly, although many portraits of the time feature birds, squirrels, and dogs, nobody in the Chesapeake area chose to pose with a cat.[9]

John Singleton Copley, Young Lady with a Bird and Dog, 1767

Men in this region tended to keep working animals as “favorites”. Working dogs were significant as indications of an individual’s connections and social standing. Emotional attachment to a dog displayed that a man was in touch with English cultural trends. George Washington is said to have proudly informed visitors that he had paid two hundred dollars for a “superb bull[dog] of English breeding”.[10] Greyhounds, pointers, and spaniels were popular English breeds. Eighteenth-century men knew each other’s dogs by sight, taking advantage of opportunities to return dogs to their owners as a sign of goodwill and friendship. When Washington admired the female spaniel belonging to Richard Sprigg in Annapolis, Sprigg sent Washington one of the spaniel’s pups.[11] The exchange of animals was an arena for the demonstration, and even formation, of social connections.

There were some men who owned cats at this time, but it was not fashionable to do so in Maryland and Virginia. Robert Wormeley Carter of Virginia recorded the death of “our old cat Corrytang” in his diary in 1780. The animal had been “a favorite cat of my fathers [sic]”, and Carter had “taken great care of him on that account, tho’ troublesome”. Taking good care of the cat, and doing so personally, was a means of demonstrating filial duty to Carter’s young son.[12]

However, Charles “Nasifer Jole” Cole was ridiculed at the Tuesday Club, Dr. Alexander Hamilton’s social club in Annapolis, for his attentions to his cats. Hamilton commented that “Some may think it very Strange, that Mr Jole, a gentleman born and bred in a christian [sic] land, should pay so much deference and respect, to these brute creatures”.[13] It was highly unusual for a grown man to take an interest in cats.

Conclusion

In 1790, Thomas Jefferson arranged for a pair of angora cats to be transported to his residence in New York City from Paris.[14] However, these cats were likely purchased for the entertainment of guests – to be displayed as exotic animals. If William Paca kept a favorite animal, it was probably a dog. An English dog would have represented Paca's English connections and status. The women of the house were more likely to have favored birds and squirrels above cats. The cats that almost certainly resided in and around the Paca household would probably have remained out of his sight, curtailing the local population of rodents and insects behind the scenes.

Written by OUIIP intern, Elena Porter

[1] Sarah H. Meacham, ‘Pets, Status and Slavery in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake’. The Journal of Southern History. vol. 77, no. 3, August 2011, p.540
[2] Tague, ‘Dead Pets: Satire and Sentiment in British Elegies and Epitaphs for Animals’. Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2008, 41, 3, 289-306, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[3] John D. Blaisdell, "An Ordained Compassion: The New England Puritans and Their Laws against Cruelty to Animals," Argos, Speciale Uitgave, Zomer 1991. 11-17.
[4] John D. Blaisdell, ‘A Most Convenient Relationship: The Rise of the Cat as a Valued Companion Animal’. Between the Species. Vol. 9, (1993). Issue 4. p.227
[5] Sarah H. Meacham, p.525
[6] Ibid., p.524
[7] Ibid., p.525
[8] Ibid., p.541
[9] Sarah H. Meacham, ‘Pets, Status and Slavery in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake’. The Journal of Southern History. vol. 77, no. 3, August 2011, p.540
[10] Ibid., p.531
[11] William Oxley to William Galt, July 29, 1837, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 35 (October 1927). Quoted in Sarah H. Meacham, p.539
[12] Sarah H. Meacham, p.540
[13] Ibid., p.548
[14] Silvio A. Bedini, Thomas Jefferson Statesman of Science, McMillan Publishing, New York, 1990, 201. Quoted in Blaisdell, 1993.