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Lamp, whale oil
Lamp, whale oil
TitleLamp, whale oil
Coverage / Year1775 to 1850
DescriptionWhale oil lamp. It has a hand blown glass lamp reservoir pegged into a crude piece of wood.
InterpretationWhale oil was highly prized from 1750 to 1850 as the best lamp oil fuel. It burned at a very steady rate, very brightly and with little smoke. Oil from the skull cavity of the spermaceti whale was the finest quality and was a major reason the whaling industry was so profitable. This lamp was hand blown to fit into a crude piece of wood. A cork, or metal fixture would hold the wick into the opening at the top. This lamp is probably an early whale oil lamp from the 1750s to 1770s.
Lesson Plans / ThemesAmerican Communities in History; Communities and Geography; How we learn about communities; Whaling Slide Show; Inventions Multimedia Time Line; School Museum; Introduction of artifacts as a primary source; What's That Relic?; Settling in the Midwest;
Learning Standards16 History; 18 Social Systems; 13 Science, Technology and Society;
Author or CreatorUnknown
Subject / KeywordsWhale; Whales; Oil lamp; Whale oil; United States; Light; Lighting device; Hand-blown glass; Glassware
Collection PublisherEarly American Museum
Further InformationFor any further information related to this record, please contact the Collection Publisher. See http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/tdc for more information about this project.
Rights Management Statementhttp://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/tdc/conditions.htm
Resource Identifier1968.001.1194
CONTENTdm file name939172422004_68.1.1194.jpg
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