03952oam 2200649K 450 991082119140332120201030121731.00-262-34478-5(CKB)4100000007877948(MiAaPQ)EBC5743826(StDuBDS)EDZ0002090587(OCoLC)1091191202(MdBmJHUP)muse66538(CaBNVSL)mat08564051(IDAMS)0b000064888fdb84(IEEE)8564051(OCoLC-P)1091191202(MaCbMITP)10552(PPN)255270127(EXLCZ)99410000000787794820190402d2018 uy 0engurcnu||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierAmerican illuminations urban lighting, 1800-1920 /David E. NyeCambridge, Massachusetts :The MIT Press,[2018]1 online resource (x, 280 pages) illustrationsMIT Press scholarship onlinePreviously issued in print: 2018.0-262-03741-6 Includes bibliographical references and index.Illuminations -- Energy transitions -- The United States and Europe -- Moonlight towers -- Spectacles and expositions -- Commercial landscape -- City beautiful -- Light as a political spectacle -- Mutliple blindings.How Americans adapted European royal illuminations for patriotic celebrations, spectacular expositions, and intensely bright commercial lighting to create the world's most dazzling and glamorous cities.Illuminated ftes and civic celebrations began in Renaissance Italy and spread through the courts of Europe. Their fireworks, torches, lamps, and special effects glorified the monarch, marked the birth of a prince, or celebrated military victory. Nineteenth-century Americans rejected such monarchial pomp and adapted spectacular lighting to their democratic, commercial culture. InAmerican Illuminations,David Nye explains how they experimented with gas and electric light to create illuminated cityscapes far brighter and more dynamic than those of Europe, and how these illuminations became symbols of modernity and the conquest of nature.Americans used gaslight and electricity in parades, expositions, advertising, elections, and political spectacles. In the 1880s, cities erected powerful arc lights on towers to create artificial moonlight. By the 1890s they adopted more intensive, commercial lighting that defined distinct zones of light and glamorized the city's White Ways, skyscrapers, bridges, department stores, theaters, and dance halls. Poor and blighted areas disappeared into the shadows. American illuminations also became integral parts of national political campaigns, presidential inaugurations, and victory celebrations after the Spanish-American War and World War I.MIT Press scholarship online.Street lightingSocial aspectsUnited StatesHistory19th centuryStreet lightingSocial aspectsUnited StatesHistory20th centuryCity and town lifeUnited StatesHistory19th centuryCity and town lifeUnited StatesHistory20th centuryHISTORY / United States / 19th CenturyTECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / HistorySCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY/History of TechnologyURBANISM/GeneralSCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY/GeneralStreet lightingSocial aspectsHistoryStreet lightingSocial aspectsHistoryCity and town lifeHistoryCity and town lifeHistory388.3/12Nye David E.1946-140346OCoLC-POCoLC-PBOOK9910821191403321American illuminations3921305UNINA