Peter Cooper Hewitt Lamp
Peter Cooper Hewitt Lamp
Name/Title
Peter Cooper Hewitt LampEntry/Object ID
2026.20.1Description
Peter Cooper Hewitt LampUse
Mercury vapour lamp used for photographic purposes. The item is still in its original shipping crate and contains several pounds of liquid mercury.Context
Peter Cooper Hewitt is given credit with invention of the mercury vapour lamp*. Jeff Behary acquired this lamp from the former Eli Buk collection auctioned off at Grogan & Company in Boston, 2013. * The first person to combine mercury in a partial vacuum for the production of artificial light was Francis Hauksbee - who also pioneered the development of static electric machines in the first decade of the 1700s. While these were not commercialized, they formed the basis of all future electrical research in the 1700s - much of which did not begin for another half a century. The ability of mercury to produce a faint light in a vacuum was known in the late 1600s from investigators transporting barometers in darkened rooms. Hauksbee turned this passing curiosity into a practical new field of scientific research - starting with triboluminescence and following with a series of electrical machines combining glass, mercury, friction, and motion in rarified atmospheres.Collection
Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy MuseumCategory
Vacuum Discharge Tubes