ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING IN AMERICA — WATKINS 387 



chest, a wooden stool or two, made with an axe, and some c;irtlicnware and 

 cooking apparatus. Everything within the cabins was colored black by 

 smoke . . . During the evening all the cabins were illuminated by great fires, 

 and, looking into one of thent, I saw a very picturesque family group; a man 

 sat on the ground making a basket, a woman lounged on a chest in the chimney 

 corner smoking a pipe, and a boy and two girls sat in a bed which had been 

 drawn up opposite to her, completing the fireside circle. [Olmsted, 1907, p. 153.] 



Such a setting was not restricted to Negroes, however. Allen 

 Eaton, describing the early cabins of the Tennessee and North Caro- 

 lina highlands (1937, p. 49) says: "The usual light for the interior 

 of the house would be firelight from the hearth, supplemented in fair 

 weather by daylight from the opened door or in rare cases from the so- 

 called window." Olmsted, stopping at one meagerly furnished Ala- 

 bama farmhouse, stated that his host went to bed immediately after 

 supper and left him alone without a candle. Elsewhere, he found 

 that candles were the usual source of light. Candlesticks to put them 

 in, however, were apparently nonexistent. In an Alabama house of 

 more than the usual appointments he sat in the well-furnished parlor, 

 "alone in the evening, straining my eyes to read a wretchedly printed 

 newspaper, till I was offered a bed . . . My host, holding a candle for 

 me to undress by (there was no candlestick in the house), called to a 

 boy on the outside to fasten the doors" (Olmsted, 1907, p. 188). This 

 situation was repeated several times at subsequent stopping places. 

 ''The same Negro was called to serve me as a candlestick at bedtime. 

 He held the candle until I got into bed," and later, "The master held 

 a candle for me while I undressed." 



Even in the rural areas of eastern Virginia, in places that had 

 earlier known higher standards of luxury, there were instances of 

 exactly similar conditions. Olmsted, in "A Journey in the Seaboard 

 Slave States" (1856, pp. 77, 79, 85-86), described a remote farmhouse 

 in the vicinity of Petersburg, where he spent the night: "It was a 

 simple, two-story house, very much like those built by the wealthier 

 class of people in New England villages, from fifty to a hundred 

 years ago, except that the chimneys were carried up outside the walls." 

 The large room on the first floor was wainscoted and had a carved 

 mantelpiece. "The house had evidently been built for a family of 

 some wealth, and, after having been deserted by them, had been bought 

 at a bargain by the present resident, who either had not the capital 

 or the inclination to furnish and occupy it appropriately." He was 

 finally led to his bedroom to retire. He continues : 



Into a large room, again, with six windows, with a fire-place, in which a few 

 brands were smoking, with some wool spread thinly upon the floor in a corner ; 

 with a dozen small bundles of tobacco leaves ; with a lady's saddle ; with a deep 

 feather-bed, covered with a bright patchwork quilt, on a maple bedstead, and 

 without a single item of other furniture whatever. Mr. Newman asked if I 

 wanted a caudle to undress by, I said yes, if he pleased, and waited a moment 



