Object Details
- Description
- This Wico electric cap mining lamp was made by the Witherbee Igniter Co. of Springfield, Massachusetts around 1914. Witherbee started as a manufacturer of magnetos to ignite internal combustion engines. Witherbee became the Wico Electric Company and also manufactured batteries, like the one used in this electric cap lamp. The lamp consists of a battery encased in a locking metal case worn on the miner’s belt. A flexible cord traveled to the cap lamp, which would be worn on the miner’s helmet.
- Electric cap lamp inventor Grant Wheat’s personal collection of mining lamps was donated to the museum in 1962. Many of these objects were depicted in his “Story of Underground Lighting” published in the “Proceedings of the Illinois Mining Institute” in 1945. This cap lamp was the 37th object in his chronological development of underground lighting.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- Mary R. Wheat
- ID Number
- AG.MHI-MN-8157
- accession number
- 239148
- catalog number
- MHI-MN-8157
- Object Name
- lamp, cap, mining
- Measurements
- battery: 6 in x 4 1/2 in x 2 in; 15.24 cm x 11.43 cm x 5.08 cm
- wire: 40 in; 101.6 cm
- light: 3 3/8 in x 3 3/8 in x 2 11/16 in; 8.636 cm x 8.636 cm x 6.858 cm
- See more items in
- Work and Industry: Mining
- Mining Lamps
- Work
- Industry & Manufacturing
- Grant Wheat Collection
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_872660
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a6-c7b8-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
