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From Fathoms to Footlights: Whaling and Theatrical Lighting at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

Andy Colpitts

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

                                    -Herman Melville, Moby Dick

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It’s hard to say whether, when he wrote Moby Dick in 1851, Melville was aware of how appropriate his metaphorical invocation of the dramatic stage was. For although one might not consider the whaling trade central to theatrical tradition at the turn of the nineteenth century, it sensorily flooded the experience of the theatre-going public and transformed performance practice. Upon entering the King’s Haymarket Theatre in London in the year 1800, a theater-going Londoner may have seen or perhaps even felt the firm, yet flexible support of baleen stays in a corset. They may have caught a whiff of ambergris in a passerby’s eau de toilette. Most certainly, our spectator would have seen the actors on stage and fellow audience members throughout the auditorium by the light of hundreds of Argand oil lamps burning brightly with sperm oil.

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While the products of the whaling industry at the turn of the nineteenth century were varied, the most prolific of these commodities was sperm oil. Derived from the blubber of the sperm whale, this non-digestible liquid wax was known for its bright flame and clean burn in oil lamps. Sperm whales also produced spermaceti, a hardened wax used in candles, soaps, cosmetics and in tanning.[1] Existing throughout all the oceans of the world, a sperm whale can produce up to three tons of oil. In search of these creatures, early modern whalers would circumnavigate the globe. Whales were chased, harpooned, and processed on board by multi-racial and multi-national crews comprised of whalers from every corner of the globe.[2] For sperm oil, this meant rendering the blubber and meat of the sperm whale. While various maritime powers like the British, French and Dutch vied for control of the whaling industry during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was increasingly the ports of New England that dominated and would bring about the so-called Golden Age of Whaling in the mid-nineteenth century. From the whaling enterprises in New Bedford, Massachusetts—the whaling capital of the world at the time— the sperm oil brought from these global voyages would be sold to Boston merchants who would in turn ship it to Great Britain, the leading consumer of American sperm oil.[3] As the whaling

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Whaling off the coast of Greenland in the 18th century. Print based on the painting by Willem van de Velde. Courtesy of the British Museum.

industry was gaining momentum in the years leading up to the American Revolution, merchants (such as US founding father John Hancock) sold 45,000 barrels of sperm oil harvested from roughly one hundred ships. At its peak in the 1850s, the United States shipped over 190,000 tons of whale oil, of which 117,950 was sperm oil.[4] In 1846, of the roughly one-thousand ships sailing the high seas in search of these enormous creatures, 729 were American.[5] This made whaling the fifth largest industry in the United States.[6]

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View from the stage of the Drury Lane Theatre, early 19th century showing oil lamp footlights and chandeliers. Courtesy of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Certainly, this may not have been at the forefront of a London audience’s mind when they attended the opera. However, the change from candle to oil-lit theatres had wide-reaching impacts for the theatrical practice and audience experience. Most importantly, the change to oil-lamps provided, quite simply, more light than had been previously possible with only candlelight. The first lamps introduced in the Haymarket Theatre in 1779 gave off approximately twice as much light as candles.[7] With the advent of the Argand burner in the early 1780s, lamps could be as much as 10 times brighter than candles.[8] This lamp, invented by the Swiss scientist Ami Argand, used a ribbon wick fed through a hollow cylinder with a channel for air from beneath, which allowed for a greater amount of oxygen and thus a brighter flame. This technology became widely distributed throughout Europe and the Americas. The first recorded theatrical use of the Argand lamp was in the infamous opening night of Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro on April 27, 1784 at the newly renovated Théâtre Français (now the Théâtre de l’Odéon) in Paris. Beginning at 5pm and running until 10pm, this polemic performance has been called the most important night in eighteenth-century French theatre and has even been credited with being the first rehearsal for the Revolution five years later.[9] You might say that the audience was able to behold Beaumarchais’s sharp critique of the monarchy all the more clearly under the new stage lights. While it is difficult to verify that the oil burnt on this evening was in fact sperm oil (the French were known for also using colza

in addition to sperm oil in their lamps), the technology of the Argand lamp spread to theatres, storefronts, and homes throughout the Atlantic World in the following decades, including to London where sperm oil was by far the favorite and where demand for whale oil positively boomed.[10]

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However, the introduction of oil lamps in theatres did more than simply increase visibility. Greater illumination allowed audiences to appreciate the new, more subtle brand of acting associated with actors like David Garrick and Sarah Siddons, which subsequently proliferated. Without having to struggle to be seen, actors increasingly forwent generic gestures and exaggerated facial expressions in favor of naturalistic behaviors. [11] This trend in acting style moved in lockstep with calls for the theatre to serve as a space for social education and transformation. Mere months after the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro, Fredrich Schiller stated: “The theatre is the common channel through which the light of wisdom streams down from the thoughtful, better part of society, spreading thence in mild beams throughout the entire state. More correct notions, more refined precepts, purer emotions flow from here into the veins of the population; the clouds of barbarism and gloomy superstition disperse; night yields to triumphant light.”[12] Schiller’s insistence on theatre shedding light on social issues finds a clear correlate in the theatrical industry’s newfound fixation with luminosity on the stage. This preoccupation with and reference for the beneficial nature of light finds its zenith in Immanuel Kant’s radical essay Answer to the

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Trade card showing various styles of Argand lamps for sale at the end of the 18th century in London. Courtesy of the British Museum.

Question: What is Enlightenment?, in which he presciently declares that we do not live in an enlightened age, but in an age of enlightenment. Thus, the confluence of lighting the stage and the use of the stage for social enlightenment were mutually reinforcing in the eyes of the public.

 

Likewise, new possibilities for theatrical lighting affected trends in stage craft, which pushed for greater naturalism and detail in costumes and for more spectacular effects.[13] The use of colored glass allowed for different moods and setting onstage.[14] Likewise, ballets and operas would frequently include scenes of ships in stormy seas including flashes of lightening.[15] At the end of the eighteenth century, the King’s Theatre at Haymarket would use between 15 and 20 gallons of lamp oil and spend roughly £6 (more than $1000 today) for illumination for an opera nightly, a figure which only increased overtime.[16] However, the use of oil lamps went out of fashion as gas and the famous limelight came into popular use during the 1820s and 1830s. In this way, the theatre acted as a harbinger for the eventual ousting of the sperm oil industry by petroleum lights by the mid nineteenth century and then by electric incandescent lights by the turn of the twentieth. Thus, although Melville pits the shabby part of whaler against the magnificent parts of tragedy, we can see that the two were, perhaps, not so dissociated as they may, at first sight, seem.

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Notes

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[1] Brant, 133.

[2] Connet et al.

[3] Gras & Larson, 66.

[4] One ton of whale oil was roughly equivalent to 250 gallons.

[5] Brant, 49.

[6] Eric Jay Dolin in interview with Rob Moir.

[7] Price et al., 171.

[8] Bergman, 199.

[9] Holland & Patterson, 276; Bergman, 203.

[10] Schrøder, 130; Wolfe, 106.

[11] Holland & Patterson, 270.

[12] Schiller, trans. Chambless & Sigerson.

[13] Bergman, 204-207.

[14] Holland & Patterson, 260.

[15] Milhous, 225.

[16] Conversion by Eric W. Nye. ; Price et al., 171

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Bibliography

 

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