FRIDAY FEATURE—Electricity, modernity and St. Stephen’s

Isn’t it startling what can come to mind when brainstorming with others? 

Recently, as fellow art historians and I explored the radical modernity of electrical power in the 19th century, my mind “heard” St. Stephen’s longtime rector Dr. Alfred W. Price (rector 1942-1971) on this very point. 

For him, St. Stephen’s going electric reaffirmed its very identity since its birth in 1823. As Dr. Price remarked in a sermon for its 135th anniversary in 1958, St. Stephen’s, “a pioneering sort of place,” was “definitely known” as “the first church in the city to use electricity” after incorporating the infant gas in its construction.

Oh? Checking with colleagues at nearby Episcopal churches supported Dr. Price to a degree. 

Our Vestry Minutes reveal that, after considering electrical lighting in 1884, the vestry approved shifting to the new technology in 1890. St. Luke & The Epiphany first installed electric light in the fall of 1899 (thanks, Mike Krasulski). St. Mark’s placed electric chandeliers in its new Lady Chapel by 1910 after possibly considering electrification also in 1884 (thanks, Jacob Hall and friends). St. Peter’s went to electrical lighting in 1921; Christ Church followed partly in 1950 (fluorescent in the chancel) and more comprehensively by 1951 within the church (thanks, Carol Smith and Jill Rawnsley). 

Yet what about other Episcopal churches and other denominations here?

Even if Dr. Price was right, the “pioneering” St. Stephen’s, I found, lagged behind churches elsewhere. In 1883, Thomas Edison introduced electricity in the new St. Edward’s Roman Catholic Church in Shamokin, Pa. shortly after installing it in London’s new City Temple. 

Mason’s chancel for the Magee mosaic Last Supper, photo 1891-96

What intrigues me about St. Stephen’s is that, according to the Vestry Minutes, powerful women congregants drove the move to electrical lighting. By June 1890, the “Misses Magee” (sisters Fannie, Eliza and Anna) proposed to “improve lighting” with electricity for the Last Supper, the mosaic “reredos” as it was then called, that they and their brothers commissioned in 1887 for the altar to commemorate their mother. Though they would fund lighting for the mosaic, they challenged the vestry to use the connections to light the church. The vestry approved and commissioned architect George C. Mason for the lighting and to modify the chancel as part of the improvement. Work was deemed complete by January 5,1891. We’ll take a closer look next time. 

With a salute to the formidable Misses Magee, we’ve landed on rich ground for early electrical lighting. We benefit already from the efforts of many. Hollis Clayson’s 2019 book, Illuminated Paris, opened a vast new world. Individual authorities among us generously share when approached, as we’ll see. 

There’s lots to do especially for churches of this period, given the potential of this new technology in sacred spaces where light traditionally plays powerful symbolic roles within the sanctuary. Within St. Stephen’s, the Misses Magee and architect George Mason confronted several facets of light’s role at once, officially for its art that’s also so integral to the church's broader liturgical function and worship experience. 

Because of this multi-faceted contribution, I’ll post separate commentaries over the next weeks on different dimensions of the church’s “pioneering” electrical lighting. I start here with a brief overview of the 19th-c history of applied electricity and the ideals that drove it. 

The word “electricity” grew out of Latin words derived from the Greek “electron” for luminous amber, given other properties identified in William Gilbert’s 1600 De Magnete within this organic fossil that becomes magnetic when rubbed, thanks to a constituent mineral, magnetite. The terms were later applied to the cause of that reaction, what became known as “charge.” The new vocabulary was in use by 1750 by scientists experimenting with “electricity,” including Benjamin Franklin for lightning. 

I thus dedicate this overview to the good Dr. Franklin whether or not he flew a kite to draw lightning where St. Stephen’s now stands. 

Caricature about blinding glare from electric gallery lights; Clayson, 81

Research into uses for electricity mushroomed into and throughout the 19th c until columnists of the 1870s noted that this longtime scientists’ “toy” was finding, in the hands of inventors, entrepreneurs, civic leaders and consumers, applications that kept opening new doors. That was especially true for night lighting. Paris installed the highly publicized Jablochkoff arc lamp in its streets and parks, and in its exhibition halls during its Universal Exhibition of 1878 for viewing after sundown during this summer extravaganza (sundown occurs around 10 then 9 pm as summer progresses). Paris’ later International Electrical Exhibition of 1881 pushed horizons even further. Both events generated lively debate, bitter controversy, and biting caricatures about blinding glare and, indoors, worrisome, even erotic color changes.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia had encouraged innovations with electricity since at least the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Much took place near St. Stephen’s. In 1877-78, its neighbor on 7th St., the Franklin Institute (no surprise!), invited select Centennial exhibitors to test their new generators (called dynamos). After trying each to power the Institute’s new steam engine, the staff asked exhibitors to design new models to illuminate arc lamps. The system built by Ohioan Charles F. Brush proved the safest and cheapest, feasible for streets and even large interiors. Brush’s new arc-light system attracted Philadelphia businessman John Wanamaker, who adapted one in 1878 for an unprecedented Christmas display in his new department store, the vast Moorish-style Grand Depot refurbished from an abandoned Pennsylvania Railroad station, with aisles radiating from the center (a panopticon), between Market and Chestnut on 12th--blocks from St. Stephen’s. 

Wanamaker’s electrical Christmas lighting created a sensation, setting a new vision for visitor experience in an unimagined consumer fantasyland --and for the visibility and appeal of displayed goods.

Three years later, in 1881, the city’s experimental electric streetlights, installed among the older gas lights along Chestnut Street, ran a block from St. Stephen’s. Soon after, in 1884, the Franklin Institute hosted a sprawling, widely publicized International Electrical Exhibition in West Philadelphia.

Visitors were dazzled by gigantic dynamos and the “surpassing splendor” of electric illumination: a dramatically highlighted jetting fountain, clusters of colored lights, chandeliers, “to say nothing of the great lines of fire from aloft which irradiate the spaces with the refulgency of noonday and a splendor all their own” (New York Times, Sept. 3, 1884). 

This riveting partnership of science and spectacle would’ve been hard for residents to ignore. I can imagine local churches (including St. Stephen’s and St. Mark’s) assessing the possibilities of such illumination for their sacred spaces that year, even if ultimately rejected. 

Why such extraordinary foment? In industrialized countries, adapting electricity updated an Enlightenment paradigm, knowledge applied to benefit humankind and the world. With financial gain a factor in many quarters, electricity also epitomized the newest ideal, progress and innovative modernity—a key identity marker for St. Stephen’s as a church that negotiated deep tradition (original Christian mission) with advancing modernity. 

For decades afterwards, electricity underwent intense scrutiny for its potential, positive and negative. Electrical light, improving daily under many hands in search of safe, affordable ‘natural” light, remained a special whipping boy for its perceived deadening or distortion of reality, even creating suspicious alternative realities. Even sophisticated , progressive individuals instead sought warmer, evocative traditional forms (flickering candles, oil and even the once-modern gas) for art galleries and home. Not so the Misses Magee, at least for their church.

Which brings us to the topic of next week’s feature, the history of lighting the mosaic “reredos’” that opens up the huge story of lighting art within a church—with the special dimension of light’s relationship to religious, even liturgical forms within a church. Stay tuned! 

— Suzanne Glover Lindsay, St. Stephen’s historian and curator