Grant Wheat's Story of Underground Lighting

Consolidated Coal Company Miners showing proper method of shooting coal, March 6, 1924.

Some objects are donated to the museum as singular items, but many donors were collectors, aficionados, or experts in their field who bequeathed their private collections into the public coffers of the Smithsonian upon their passing. Such is the case with the Grant Wheat collection of mining lamps that were donated to the museum by his widow Mary Wheat in 1961.  Grant Wheat left a lasting impact on the mining lamp industry thanks to his invention of the rechargeable battery-powered Wheat incandescent lamp in 1918. The lamp received approval from the Bureau of Mines in 1919, and has been manufactured by Koehler Lighting Products of Marlborough, Massachusetts. The Wheat lamp was also licensed by Oldham & Son, a large battery manufacturer in England who used Wheat’s designs to sell their lamps in the United Kingdom and Australia. Koehler has continued to produce Wheat brand lamps into the 20th century.

The Wheat collection illustrates the genesis and development of the rechargeable battery-powered Wheat Lamp during the 1920s and 1930s. The Wheat collection also includes several batteries for hearing aids, as Wheat owned patents relating to the improvement of hearing aid batteries. Puzzlingly, though, Wheat’s donation contained a disparate collection of old lighting artifacts including several torches, pottery lamps, candles, and candle molds that seemed incongruous with the battery-powered lamps in the accession. Reading Grant Wheat’s “Story of Underground Lighting” published in the 53rd Proceedings of the Illinois Mining Institute provided the necessary framework for the collection. The objects were collected to document Wheat’s history of underground lighting, from antiquity to the development of the battery-powered cap lamp, which he presented at the 1945 Annual Meeting of the Illinois Mining Institute.

The Roman Temple of Vesta. Click for images from the "Story of Undergroun Lighting."

Wheat began his presentation by noting the sacred nature of fire in Rome, where a fire was maintained at the Temple of Vesta. Torches were the next iteration of lighting, followed by pottery lamps. Pottery lamps gave way to candles, which led to metal lamps, which were eventually converted into small metal cap lamps designed expressly for mining. The development of mining lamps continued with carbide lamps, which could still cause methane explosions due to their exposed flame and prompted a need for safer lighting. Safety lamps followed with contemporaneous designs from Sir Humphry Davy, William Clanny, and George Stephenson produced around 1813. During the early 20th century, battery-powered lamps began to replace flame lighting. One of the first battery-powered lamps was the CEAG hand lamp made in England in 1912. In the United States battery-powered cap lamps manufactured by Edison, Hirsch, Concordia, Witherbee, and Koehler were all approved by the U.S. Bureau of Mines from 1915 through 1917. Wheat ends his history of underground lighting with the Koehler Flame Safety Lamp and the Wheat Electric Cap lamp.

The objects below are the objects depicted in Grant’s “Story of Underground Lighting” that were donated as part of the Wheat collection.  While not definitive or comprehensive, Wheat’s presentation is an interesting overview of the development of lighting from an inventor prominently involved in the history of lighting during the early 20th century. More of Wheat’s battery-powered cap lamps can be seen in the  “Electric Lamps” section.

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Open Pottery Lamp

This is an open clay lamp with a flat bottom. The center of the lamp would have been filled with oil, with the wick dipping into the fuel.Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962.
Description
This is an open clay lamp with a flat bottom. The center of the lamp would have been filled with oil, with the wick dipping into the fuel.
Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962. Many of these objects were depicted in his “Story of Underground Lighting” published in the “Proceedings of the Illinois Mining Institute” in 1945. This lamp is third in his chronological development of underground lighting, of which he writes, “The first pottery lamps were made like a clam shell, except that the bottom was flat to prevent tipping over, they used olive oil in the south and some sort of fiber for the wick.”
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
AG.MHI-MN-8171
accession number
239148
catalog number
MHI-MN-8171

Open Pottery Lamp

This is an open clay lamp with rolled sides and a flat bottom to prevent any fuel spilling. The wick can be seen inside the lamp.
Description
This is an open clay lamp with rolled sides and a flat bottom to prevent any fuel spilling. The wick can be seen inside the lamp. The center of the lamp would have been filled with oil, with the wick running from the spout down into the font.
Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962. Many of these objects were depicted in his “Story of Underground Lighting” published in the “Proceedings of the Illinois Mining Institute” in 1945. This lamp is fourth in his chronological development of underground lighting which he describes as a “pottery lamp with sides rolled in to provide an outlet for the wick and prevent spillage. Following this came the complete covering of the top of the vessel which left a hole for the wick and one for replenishing with olive oil.”
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
AG.MHI-MN-8170
accession number
239148
catalog number
MHI-MN-8170

Pottery Lamp

This red clay lamp has a rounded body, looped handle, and a small hole in the middle for filling the lamp with oil. The lamp has a cotton wick in its mouth.
Description
This red clay lamp has a rounded body, looped handle, and a small hole in the middle for filling the lamp with oil. The lamp has a cotton wick in its mouth. A faint design is stamped into the lamp’s center discus, perhaps a stalk of grain.
Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962. Many of these objects were depicted in his “Story of Underground Lighting” published in the “Proceedings of the Illinois Mining Institute” in 1945. This lamp was the fifth object he used to describe the chronological development of underground lighting. Wheat wrote that the lamp is an “original pottery lamp from Pompeii, nearly 2000 years old.”
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
AG.MHI-MN-8168
accession number
239148
catalog number
MHI-MN-8168

Pottery Lamp

This clay lamp has a rounded body with a looped handle. The lamp has a small hole in the middle that was used for filling the lamp with oil.Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962.
Description
This clay lamp has a rounded body with a looped handle. The lamp has a small hole in the middle that was used for filling the lamp with oil.
Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962. Many of these objects were depicted in his “Story of Underground Lighting” published in the “Proceedings of the Illinois Mining Institute” in 1945. This lamp is sixth in his chronological development of underground lighting, and he claims that the lamp is an “original pottery lamp used by the Christians in the Catacombs. Among early mining operations on record are the plaster mines of Rome known as the Catacombs. The product of these mines was soft stone or volcanic deposit of a kind of lava. It was porous and absorbed odors. When pulverized and mixed with other materials and water it was used in laying the brick in building ancient Rome, some walls which stand today. These mines were dig with olive oil lamps. It was in these mines that St. Peter converted the early Christians.”
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
AG.MHI-MN-8169
accession number
239148
catalog number
MHI-MN-8169

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