Energy & Power

The Museum's collections on energy and power illuminate the role of fire, steam, wind, water, electricity, and the atom in the nation's history. The artifacts include wood-burning stoves, water turbines, and windmills, as well as steam, gas, and diesel engines. Oil-exploration and coal-mining equipment form part of these collections, along with a computer that controlled a power plant and even bubble chambers—a tool of physicists to study protons, electrons, and other charged particles.
A special strength of the collections lies in objects related to the history of electrical power, including generators, batteries, cables, transformers, and early photovoltaic cells. A group of Thomas Edison's earliest light bulbs are a precious treasure. Hundreds of other objects represent the innumerable uses of electricity, from streetlights and railway signals to microwave ovens and satellite equipment.


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Modular fluorescent lamp
- Description
- In the wake of soaring energy prices in the 1970s, several manufacturers quickly introduced new lamp designs to meet a demand for efficient lighting devices. General Electric mounted a circular fluorescent tube on an adapter that housed a starter and ballast, and that could screw into an ordinary fixture. Called the Circlite, this hybrid product was introduced to the public in 1976.
- Since circular fluorescent tubes were already a mature product (originally developed in 1943), GE could take advantage of existing research data and production lines for the Circlite. Also, retailers and consumers were familiar with circular lamps, which eased resistance to the introduction of the new unit. The modular design allowed users to replace the tube when it failed, without having to replace the more expensive ballast package. Ultimately, GE and other manufacturers produced several versions of the lamp and refined the product. A light-weight electronic ballast replaced the heavier, less-efficient magnetic ballast used in this 1978 model, for example. As of today Circlites remain in production.
- Lamp characteristics: A modular fluorescent lamp with three components: ballast, mounting frame, and lamp. Ballast: aluminum medium-screw base with brass contact and a glass insulator. A plastic skirt houses a magnetic ballast and a receptacle for a circular fluorescent lamp frame. Mounting frame: a three-arm plastic frame (made in two halves) with a sliding switch to release the ballast. The ballast mounts at center of mounting frame. Lamp: circular fluorescent tube with soft white colored phosphor.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca. 1978
- Date made
- ca 1978
- manufacturer
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.25
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.25
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Short Arc Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Original mini-arc lamp with argon and iodine. The quartz envelope uses uranium glass for graded seals.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1960
- maker
- Fridrich, Elmer G.
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.28
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.28
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- A 100 watt mercury vapor lamp designed for alternating current operation with a reactive transformer.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1938
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.03
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental mercury vapor lamp rated at 1000 watts. Typewritten label indicates a test run of "12,120 hours.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1950
- maker
- Westinghouse Electric Corp.
- ID Number
- 1997.0389.44
- accession number
- 1997.0389
- catalog number
- 1997.0389.44
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Self-ballasted Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- This lamp was designed as a retrofit for mogul based, 500 W incandescent fixtures. Discharge lamps such as mercury vapor lamps require a ballast to prevent self-destruction. The goal with this product was to improve energy efficiency in the luminaire without requiring installation of a separate ballast. Also, the light emitted by the incandescent filament in this lamp would provide a minimal amount of color correction for the blue-green mercury discharge. Characteristics: brass mogul-screw base with glass insulator. Side-tipped, quartz arc-tube with two main electrodes (tungsten coil-on-coil on mandrels), a coiled tungsten starter electrode (a single-arch filament adjacent to the lower main electrode), multi-piece leads (stranded wire to solid wire to flat plate to ribbon to molybdenum wafer to electrode), flat presses. Mercury condensed on lower electrode. A C-9 tungsten filament (with 5 two-piece supports mounted to a glass bead affixed to one support frame-member) acts as a ballast resistance and is in series with the arc-tube. Crimp connectors on leads, spot-welds on mount-structure. A thermostatic (bi-metal) switch is in series with the starting electrode. Glass-tube insulators on filament legs, and ceramic insulator on switch. Getter dispenser mounted near stem-press. Tipless, PS-style envelope. See Duro-Test form 992 (High Intensity Discharge Lamps), page 3; and form 971-8210GTO15M (Fluomeric Lamps). Given to donor by an engineer who rescued the lamp from a south Baltimore warehouse which was being demolished around 1981. Fluomeric is a registered trade-mark of Duro-Test (as per 1955). Richard Neubert of Duro-Test reported that Jewell was a subsidiary of Duro-Test until 1981, and marketed the lamp under the trade name "Super Lumen" until around 1975. The trade-names were then consolidated and Jewell sold Fluomeric until 1981.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1978
- maker
- Jewell Products Inc.
- ID Number
- 2003.0030.03
- accession number
- 2003.0030
- catalog number
- 2003.0030.03
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Sunlamp
- Description (Brief)
- S-1 sunlamp with both incandescent and mercury vapor technology in one lamp. Clear envelope was only used for one year.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1950
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.77
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.77
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Projection Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Mini-arc projection lamp. Reflector has a dichroic film that reflects visible light but transmits infrared light.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1976
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.39F
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.39F
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
High Pressure Sodium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- "Ceramalux" high pressure sodium lamp. The clear arc tube transmits more light than regular sodium lamps.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1970
- maker
- Westinghouse Electric Corporation
- ID Number
- 2001.0084.05
- accession number
- 2001.0084
- catalog number
- 2001.0084.05
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Mercury Vapor Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- The third version of the type H-1 mercury vapor lamp utilized “K Monel” tube supports and slightly more mercury.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1937
- maker
- General Electric Company
- ID Number
- 1997.0387.02
- accession number
- 1997.0387
- catalog number
- 1997.0387.02
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental High Pressure Sodium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- An experimental high pressure sodium lamp with unusual monolithic arc tube seals. Possibly made by Kurt Schmidt.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1975
- Maker
- General Electric
- ID Number
- 1997.0388.11
- accession number
- 1997.0388
- catalog number
- 1997.0388.11
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Short Arc Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Experimental mini-arc lamp designed to test short arc-gap.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- ca 1968
- maker
- Fridrich, Elmer G.
- ID Number
- 1996.0147.27
- accession number
- 1996.0147
- catalog number
- 1996.0147.27
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Integral Compact Fluorescent Lamp
- Description
- Inventors seeking to develop energy-efficient lamps could not simply start with a blank piece of paper. They needed to work within the capabilities of existing lighting and power systems. Sometimes even small features had an influence, like the use of the screw-in base and socket.
- What became the standard screw-in lamp base and socket was introduced by Thomas Edison in 1883, and it hasn't changed since. To this day often referred to as an "Edison base," it's formally known as the medium-screw base. While there are other base sizes (and types), the medium-screw base is the most common, especially in residential light fixtures.
- Since sockets for this base are so widespread, designers of compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) like this 1993 Panasonic "Light Capsule" needed to ensure their products would fit that size. This model EFG16LE lamp is an integral unit--it's all in one piece, including the screw-in base. Other modular lamps used specially designed plug-in bases. The plug-in base has several advantages over the medium-screw base. One of the most important is that if the light fixture takes a plug-in base, one can't use a cheap regular lamp in place of the more expensive CFL.
- But few homes had fixtures with plug-in bases. And lamp makers realized that few homeowners would replace their fixtures just to use the new lamps. So inventors needed to design their lamps with the screw-base, or develop an adaptor.
- Lamp characteristics: Medium-screw base with plastic skirt containing an electronic ballast and starter. Fluorescent tube assembly containing two electrodes, mercury, and an internal phosphor coating. White, G-shaped glass envelope covers the tube assembly. This lamp came in its original package. Rated at 16 watts, it's intended as a replacement for 60 watt incandescent lamps.
- date made
- ca. 1993
- Date made
- ca 1993
- manufacturer
- Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
- ID Number
- 1996.0357.01
- accession number
- 1996.0357
- catalog number
- 1996.0357.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Experimental Sulphur Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Demonstration electrodeless sulfur bulb powered by microwave energy.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1996
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.07
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.07
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Modular Compact Fluorescent Lamp
- Description
- After decades of constant decline, the cost of electricity in the U.S. began to rise beginning in the 1960s. The change occurred for many reasons, one of which was continually growing demand for electric power. During the 1980s electric utilities that had traditionally concerned themselves with managing the supply of power began adopting so-called Demand Side Management programs (DSM). The idea centered on encouraging the use of special pricing and greater energy efficiency to slow the need for new power plants and transmission lines.
- While many DSM programs focused on commercial and industrial power users, some targeted residential consumers. One popular program involved utilities' swapping regular incandescent lamps for new, energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). The participating utility purchased a large quantity of CFLs from a lamp maker at a discount and then provided the lamps to consumers at a reduced price, or sometimes for free. Some governments provided subsidies to help cover the costs.
- Bulb-swaps introduced many people to energy-efficient CFLs. They also provided a market demand during the early years of CFL production when lamp makers were still paying for the new production lines needed to make the new lamps. As more lamps were produced, prices began to decline. This "Super Q'Lite" modular lamp from Lights Of America was offered by Washington, DC utility PEPCO in 1994 as part of a DSM program. Using only 27 watts, it replaced a regular lamp that used 100 watts.
- Lamp characteristics: A modular compact fluorescent lamp with two parts—a tube assembly and a base-unit. The original package and coupon book were collected with this lamp. The tube assembly consists of a four-tube glass structure with two electrodes, mercury and an internal phosphor coating. Plug-in style base. The base-unit has a medium-screw shell and houses the ballast and starter equipment. A receptacle on top accepts the plug-in base of the tube assembly.
- date made
- ca. 1992
- Date made
- ca 1992
- Maker
- Lights of America, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0357.05
- accession number
- 1996.0357
- catalog number
- 1996.0357.05
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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Demonstration Sulphur Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Demonstration electrodeless sulfur bulb powered by microwave energy.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1996
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.04
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.04
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental Sulphur-Selenium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Demonstration electrodeless selenium and sulfur bulb powered by microwave energy. Selenium is predominate.
- date made
- 1996
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.05
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.05
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental Sulphur-Selenium Lamp
- Description
- In the mid-1990s Fusion Lighting began selling a microwave-powered lighting system. The small, spherical bulbs contained a small amount of the element sulfur that gave a large amount of good quality light when energized by microwaves. Company researchers began investigating other materials to learn more about their new light source and perhaps to discover another saleable product.
- The lamp is from one of those follow-on experiments and contains a mix of sulfur and another element, selenium. Both elements have related properties. Chemists refer to them as Group VI elements since they appear in the same column of the Periodic Table. Fusion researchers felt that these related elements might work well together in the new system. The company donated two other sulfur-selenium lamps from the same experiment that contain mixtures with differing ratios of the two elements.
- Lamp characteristics: A quartz stem with a notched metal sleeve near the bottom serves as the base. The notch locks the lamp into its fixture. The sphere has an argon gas filling with a tiny amount of Krypton-85 to help start the discharge. The orange material condensed on the inner wall is an equal mix of sulfur and selenium. The pattern of condensation indicates lamp was burned vertically. Tipless, G-shaped quartz envelope.
- Date made
- 1997
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.08
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.08
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental Sulphur-Selenium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Demonstration electrodeless selenium and sulfur bulb powered by microwave energy. Selenium is predominate.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1996
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.06
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.06
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Microwave-powered ultraviolet lamp
- Description
- When most people think of electric lighting, they think of ordinary lamps used for lighting rooms or shops. But many types of lamps are made for use in highly specialized applications. One example is a successful product made by Fusion Systems. Founded by four scientists and an engineer, the company markets an ultraviolet (UV) lighting system powered by microwaves. Introduced in 1976, the system found a market in industrial processing as a fast, efficient way to cure inks. A major brewery, for example, purchased the system for applying labels to beer cans and quickly curing their inks while the bottles went down the production line. U.S. patents issued for this lighting system include 3872349, 4042850 and 4208587.
- The lamp seen here, referred to as a "TEM lamp" is a typical production unit. As in a fluorescent lamp, this lamp makes ultraviolet light by energizing mercury vapor. Fluorescents and other conventional lamps pass an electric current between two electrodes to energize the mercury. But Fusion's lamp has no electrodes. Instead the lamp is placed in a specially made fixture similar in principle to a household microwave oven. The microwaves energize the mercury vapor directly. A small dose of metal halides is also energized in the lamp. The choice of metal halides allows specific wavelengths of light to be produced to meet different needs.
- Profits made from the production of this industrial lamp were used by the company to support research and development of a microwave-powered lamp that made visible light. Instead of mercury that lamp used sulfur. However this sulfur lamp did not sell well when introduced in the mid-1990s.
- Lamp characteristics: Clear quartz tube containing a metal-halide pellet and a drop of mercury. No electrodes. The air-cooled tube is radiated by microwaves and produces ultraviolet light.
- date made
- ca. 1996
- Date made
- ca 1996
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.03
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.03
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
-
Experimental Selenium Lamp
- Description (Brief)
- Demonstration electrodeless selenium bulb powered by microwave energy.
- date made
- 1996
- maker
- Fusion Lighting, Inc.
- ID Number
- 1996.0359.09
- catalog number
- 1996.0359.09
- accession number
- 1996.0359
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History