Post by spence on Jun 19, 2023 12:23:41 GMT -7
The names of period oil lamps are confusing. I’ve spent some time trying to understand them, but am not confident I succeeded. The info available is mostly from contemporary collectors, and even that is not clear, to say nothing of what was in use in the day, Here’s the picture as I understand it.
Cruisie is the term used for a lamp which is simply a shallow saucer or pan with a crimp in the edge to lay the wick in. It’s open, no top. The wick burns, but also tends to wick up and drip oil over the edge. That is apparently the reason they are also called slut lamps, they are untidy. Because they produce little light, they were sometimes made with additional crimps in the edge to burn more wicks, Some were square with four wicks, one at each corner.
I guess a cruisie lamp could be improvised from anything at hand:
James Kenny, 1757-58, “With some difficulty got Ye goods that night to Anderson’s Ferry, where I saw a lamp made out of a turnip.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1913, p. 398
In an attempt to stop the dripping overboard a second saucer was added under the first, simply to catch the oil. In Europe that was called, appropriately, a double cruisie. When that type arrived in the colonies it came to be called a phoebe lamp, I have no idea why.
The third type is the betty lamp.That came about when someone had the idea to add an internal tube to hold the wick, arranged so the oil would drip back into the same pan. It also has a top which can be opened. Much of the confusion about lamp names seems to come about because many people use the term “betty lamp” for any of the early oil lamps. In modern ads for antique oil lamps you will see such descriptions as “cruisie betty lamp” or “phoebe betty lamp”. I don’t think that’s what they were called in the day. The term “betty lamp” is apparently limited to those with an internal wick tube and a top which can be opened.
I have experimented with a betty lamp using a homemade, rolled and bound wick, burning bacon drippings, and primitive is an appropriate description. Not much light, smoky and smelly at its best.
Spence
Cruisie is the term used for a lamp which is simply a shallow saucer or pan with a crimp in the edge to lay the wick in. It’s open, no top. The wick burns, but also tends to wick up and drip oil over the edge. That is apparently the reason they are also called slut lamps, they are untidy. Because they produce little light, they were sometimes made with additional crimps in the edge to burn more wicks, Some were square with four wicks, one at each corner.
I guess a cruisie lamp could be improvised from anything at hand:
James Kenny, 1757-58, “With some difficulty got Ye goods that night to Anderson’s Ferry, where I saw a lamp made out of a turnip.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1913, p. 398
In an attempt to stop the dripping overboard a second saucer was added under the first, simply to catch the oil. In Europe that was called, appropriately, a double cruisie. When that type arrived in the colonies it came to be called a phoebe lamp, I have no idea why.
The third type is the betty lamp.That came about when someone had the idea to add an internal tube to hold the wick, arranged so the oil would drip back into the same pan. It also has a top which can be opened. Much of the confusion about lamp names seems to come about because many people use the term “betty lamp” for any of the early oil lamps. In modern ads for antique oil lamps you will see such descriptions as “cruisie betty lamp” or “phoebe betty lamp”. I don’t think that’s what they were called in the day. The term “betty lamp” is apparently limited to those with an internal wick tube and a top which can be opened.
I have experimented with a betty lamp using a homemade, rolled and bound wick, burning bacon drippings, and primitive is an appropriate description. Not much light, smoky and smelly at its best.
Spence