Street Light Technical Information Willis Lamm   STREET LIGHTS: Patents from 1890 through 1891

Patents are an effective way to understand the development of street lighting in the United States. In this section I have posted patents as I located them. (Early patents are difficult to locate as they were not cross-indexed.) All patents are listed in order of their filing dates. Click on the patent number or thumbnail to view the entire patent.

Around 1890 electric street lighting started to dominate. Most street light circuits were high tension series, allowing many lamps to be controlled from a single point. Much of the developments involved devices that would keep the circuit alive if an arc lamp failed or incandescent lamp burned out. Many of these lamps were isolated by autotransformers, however a failed lamp could affect the efficiency of the circuit. Other devices were designed to help protect lineman servicing lamps and changing lamp bulbs. Meanwhile inventors were still designing improvements to natural gas, acetylene and oil burning streetlamps that were still commonly used where electricity was not readily available.

Patent No. 428008 Filing date: January 11, 1890 Patent date: May 13, 1890 Title: Arc Lamp Inventor: Philip Lange Assignee: Westinghouse Electric Co. Claims: Improved AC arc lamp.

Patent No. 429573 Filing date: January 11, 1890 Patent date: June 33, 1890 Title: Electric-Arc Lamp Inventor: Chauncy Keller Claims: Carbon feed regulator resistant to lamp motion.

Patent No. 428066 Filing date: February 11, 1890 Patent date: May 20, 1890 Title: Arc Lamp Inventor: Charles P. Breese Claims: Solenoid type carbon electrode feeding system.

Patent No. 427195 Filing date: February 11, 1890 Patent date: May 6, 1890 Title: Arc-Lamp Attachment Inventor: Albert P. Seymour Claims: Improved attachment for carbon arc electrodes.

Patent No. 514505 Filing date: May 27, 1890 Patent date: February 18, 1894 Title: Electric-Arc Lamp Inventor: Charles E. Scribner and Ernest P. Warner Claims: Arc lamp electrode feed mechanism using a shunt magnet.

Patent No. 444929 Filing date: August 4, 1890 Patent date: January 20, 1891 Title: Incandescent Electric Lamp Inventor: Eliju Thomsen Assignee: Thomson-Houston Electric Company Claims: Incandescent lamp with film cutout feature.
Patent No. 512401 Filing date: May 1, 1891 Patent date: January 9, 1894 Title: Duplex Arc Lamp Inventor: Charles E. Scribner Assignee: Western Electric Co. Claims: Arc lamp with two sets of electrodes where the second set switches in when the first one fails.
Patent No. 459510 Filing date: May 25, 1891 Patent date: September 15, 1891 Title: Electric-Arc Lamp Inventor: Edward R. Knowles Claims: Solenoid type feed for electrodes.
Patent No. 514506 Filing date: August 1, 1891 Patent date: February 13, 1894 Title: Electric-Arc Lamp Inventor: Charles E. Scribner Assignee: Western Electric Co. Claims: Arc lamp with two sets of electrodes where the second set switches in when the first one fails.
Patent No. 471730 Filing date: November 4, 1891 Patent date: March 29, 1892 Title: Mast Arm Switch for Electric Lamps Inventor: Thomas Dillon Claims: Automatic cutout from the circuit when a swinging bracket arm is lowered for the servicing of the lamp.

Continue to 1892 - 1893

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Please note: This index is a work in progress. If you notice an error or are aware of something that is missing, please feel free to Email me. Thanks!