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This chapter describes the earliest electrical lighting system of the U.S. government’s Capitol building. The dome of the Capitol building was decorated with frescoes of American history, which, during the daytime, were illuminated with the light from numerous windows. However, there was an urgent need to illuminate these frescoes at night because the light of a chandelier was not enough to illuminate every corner of the dome. This had to be done by a number of gas lights placed along the periphery of the dome. To overcome the challenge of manually lighting all the gas lamps, Samuel Gardiner invented an electric gas lighter that functioned on the rules of a telegraph key: one key of the lighter released gas, and the second key ignited the released gas.

This chapter describes how the different inventions of bright light sources influenced public lighting systems. First of all, with the improvements in navigation aids for ships, more and more lighthouses were built along the coastal line, and as bright light was essential in lighthouses, so all the new inventions for bright lights were tried out in lighthouses. Also, the requirement for better lighting in public places such as theatres, rail stations, factories, and buildings was felt. The battery-operated carbon arc light was introduced and to prevent fast wearing-out of the carbon rods, electromagnets were introduced. The electromagnets were wired in the light circuit and could move the carbon rods in a clockwise manner in response to the changes in the amount of current in the arc.

Expositions in St. Louis and San Francisco and the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration were brilliantly coordinated electric landscapes. Urban planners such Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Mulford Robinson successfully promoted new parks, restrictions on electric advertising, and tasteful lighting along boulevards. But commercial energies retained their focal points in the downtown and amusement parks, where spectacular lighting effects had free play. The controversy over how to light American cities resulted in a compromise between the City Beautiful Movement and the individualistic forces of commerce. The resulting hybrid landscape was neither the harmonious, horizontal city of the great expositions nor the visual cacophony of Times Square but a lively compromise. It lacked an intentional unifying style, but when viewed from a skyscraper or an airplane, it was impressive and unexpectedly attractive. It expressed tensions between Beaux Arts tradition and American iconoclasm, between the horizontal city and the vertical thrust of commerce, between an exuberant popular culture and a reverence toward patriotic symbols.

This chapter illustrates how technological change is influenced by practical application needs and presents the example of Edison’s effort in setting up an electrical lighting system in a stretch of offices in the Pearl Street District of lower Manhattan. Any scientific invention needs to be useful in practice or in application for it to be accepted by society. Additionally, the performance characteristics of a new technology such as installation cost, operating cost, efficiency, and durability are crucial for its social acceptance. The chapter also illustrates the fact that, at times, the effects of a specific technological invention may become the causative factor of another invention. The author takes up the example of primitive battery-operated lighting, which gave rise to the invention of better street lighting.