IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021 - 18

Book Review
obnoxious to the human eye; a lamp for a nightmare. "
The word " glare " came to be employed to
describe unpleasant electric lighting The author
supplies one meaning: " an unpleasant sensation
resulting from excessive brightness. "
Although the glare of streetlights might be
regarded as a minor nuisance, this was not the case
with automobile headlight glare which emerged as
a significant problem. Initially, cars had nonelectric
acetylene lamps the illumination of which required
a chemical reaction and which was superior to the
early automotive electric lamps of the automotive
era. It was not until around 1910 that we see a growing
preference for electric car lamps.
Aside from the glare perceived by another
driver or pedestrian caught in the headlamps of an
approaching car, there were difficulties for car drivers
as they sat behind their own " moving cone of
light. " A nice quote from the Boston Globe, in 1910
that Isenstadt employs states the problem:
no matter how well he may know the road by
daylight, he is often at a loss[ at night] to recognize
familiar objects and will even pass the
place he desires to go without being without
being aware of it ....Objects by the roadside
have an unnatural appearance and seem out
of proportion.
The bright headlights that evolved in this period
had their downside, as Isenstadt relates with a
quote from New York's secretary of state in 1914:
There are few situations more paralyzing for
the traveler ... than meeting a motor car with
powerful headlights. All that is visible to him is
a pair of eye scorching white discs set in the
midst of impenetrable darkness.
Not surprisingly, in 1918, New York State passed a
law specifying a maximum candlepower at a certain
point in space with respect to the headlamp. Police
carried specialized instruments to enforce this law.
It wasn't until the late 1930s that federal laws were
passed regulating automobile headlamps.
Here, I would fault Isenstadt for a problem that
dogged me throughout his book: a scarcity of hard
technical information, e.g., when did the system of
dim/bright lighting that all cars now have and which
is triggered by a button on the floor or a switch on
the steering column come into use? And when
the intensity of light in a room or on the street is
18
measured, it must be done with some kind of light
meter. Nowhere does he mention the history and origin
of such an instrument and yet it is key to many of
his discussions.
In the following chapter, Isenstadt moves his
attention from outdoor illumination, and the automobile,
to the indoors as he takes on factory lighting.
The " dark satanic " English mills that sprang up in the
18th century had to have light. The factories created
in the 1700s consolidated labor for the first time in
large buildings. If water or steam power were used
as a prime mover, the factory was long, multistoried,
and narrow on account of the system of overhead
driveshafts employed. Such a building was difficult
to keep illuminated for work by means of daylight,
and an array of awnings and screens were employed.
At first many mills also tried candles. Gaslight
was adopted by factories beginning in the early
19th century but suffered from flicker and odor, and
by the 1870s some mills switched to the brighter but
hotter arc lamps. With the spread of electrification
in America and the United Kingdom, it wasn't many
years before arc lighting was dropped in favor of
incandescent.
Isenstadt explains how the scientific management
movement, also known as Taylorism, was
quick to employ incandescent lighting in factories.
Unlike other aspects of Taylorism, which frequently
involved speeding up production lines,
and directives about how workers were to move
their body, improved lighting, brought about by
Taylor's disciples, was generally liked by the working
class-better lighting was a non-coercive way
to improve production.
From the factory, an improved lighting movement
spread to schools-helped by a prevalent notion
that public schools were themselves a kind of factory
in which the raw materials (kids)are reshaped
to meet the demands of life. Inadequate lighting was
seen as a source of eye problems as well as a cause
of bad posture. By the 1930s, General Electric, maker
of both electric power generators and bulbs, offered
to send consultants into private homes to assess
lighting conditions. Their advertisements pointed to
their success in factories and schools.
From indoor lighting-home, school, and factory,
all centers of production-Isenstadt takes up
in a new chapter to what might be deemed as its
opposite: outdoor lighting designed to promote
consumption. His attention here is on Times Square
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021

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