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The use of street lighting was first recorded in the city of Antioch from the 4th century.〔M. Luckiesh (1920), ''Artificial Light'', The Century Company, pp 153–4.〕 Later it was recorded in the Arab Empire from the 9th–10th centuries, especially in Cordova,〔S. P. Scott (1904), ''History of the Moorish Empire in Europe'', 3 vols, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and London. F. B. Artz (1980), ''The Mind of the Middle Ages'', Third edition revised, University of Chicago Press, pp 148–50. cf. (References ), 1001 Inventions〕 and then in London from 1417 when Henry Barton, the mayor, ordered "lanterns with lights to be hanged out on the winter evenings between Hallowtide and Candlemasse." It was introduced to the US by inventor Benjamin Franklin, who was the postmaster of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For this reason, many regard Philadelphia as the birthplace of street lighting in the US. The colonial-era streetlights were lit by candles placed inside a glass vessel, which kept the candle from being blown out by wind. Franklin's design was four-sided, with four separate panes of glass, so that if one pane of glass was broken, the lamp did not need to be entirely replaced, and might not even blow out. After the invention of gas lighting by William Murdoch in 1792, cities in Britain began to light their streets using gas. The United States followed suit shortly afterwards with the introduction of gas lighting to Pelham Street in Newport, Rhode Island in 1803.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://newsroom.discovernewport.org/facts/firsts )〕 Throughout the 19th century, the use of gas lighting increased. Some locations in the US still use gas lights. After Thomas Edison pioneered electric use, light bulbs were developed for the streetlights as well. The first city to use electric street lights was Wabash, Indiana. Charles F. Brush of Cleveland, Ohio wanted to publicly test his new invention the "Brush Light" and needed a city to do so. The City Council of Wabash agreed to testing the lights and on March 31, 1880, Wabash became the "First Electrically Lighted City in the World" as a flood of light engulfed the town from four Brush Lights mounted atop the courthouse. One of the original Brush Lights is on display at the Wabash County Courthouse. By the beginning of the 20th century, the number of fire-based streetlights was dwindling as developers were searching for safer and more effective ways to illuminate their streets. Fluorescent and incandescent lights became popular during the 1930s and 1940s, when automobile travel began to flourish. A street with lights was referred to as a ''white way'' during the early 20th century. Part of New York City's Broadway was nicknamed the ''Great White Way'' due to the massive number of electric lights used on theater marquees lining the street. == Manufacturers == The two main competitors in the street lighting industry were General Electric and Westinghouse. During the 1950s, GE lit roadways with its Form 109 and, later, the popular Form 400. Westinghouse answered with the OV-20 model. In 1957, a new breed of streetlight fixture was introduced; the "cobraheads". If viewed from beneath they resembled a cobra's flared neck. Westinghouse dubbed its cobraheads the Silverliners, which remained in production over the next 25 years. The OV-25 remains a popular streetlight fixture. GE later introduced its own cobrahead, called the M400. The original M400 is noted for its pointed front end that protrudes over its bowl-shaped diffuser (also called a refractor). The M400 was the OV-25's main rival. They carried 250–400 watt bulbs and were common on Interstate highways and city boulevards. GE made the M250 which was exactly same design as the M400 but using plastic refractor made for 250 watt. The M250 production ended in 1960 replacing with a M250R. In 1964, Westinghouse produced an updated version of the OV-25, with a more rounded look. Only the diffuser was left unchanged. In 1967, GE updated its M400 and M250 with its PowrDoor design. Gone was the protruding front end, and the new M400A and M250A were also more streamlined (although the original M400 and M250R continued to be produced until 1970). In 1970, a split-door M400 was introduced that shared the M400A's bodyshell but had a nonvented door held in place with a spring latch, while the M400A's vented door was held in place with a bail latch. GE and Westinghouse also developed smaller fixtures. A miniature version of the M400 was made for suburban residential streets and alleys. That fixture was called the M250R which replaced the M250 which looked exactly like the M400 but with plastic lens and rated for 250 watt. In the same vein, Westinghouse offered three smaller Silverliners. The OV-12 (whose look resembles a miniature OV-50) came out in 1960, and it became the companion model to the Canadian-market OV-14B, which had been introduced in 1957. The OV-14B looks like a smaller version of the 1957-edition OV-25. Both the OV-12 and OV-14B were replaced by the OV-15 in 1965. These smaller fixtures carried 100–250 watt light bulbs. The second-generation M400 and M250 were the first fixtures to sport the new high pressure sodium (HPS) lights that came out in 1966. The existing Silverliners could not handle these new lights, so Westinghouse developed a new OV-25, as well as a new OV-15. Both of these new Silverliners (also known as TuDors, and seen as Westinghouse's answer to GE's popular PowrDoor series) now had a flat bottom, and weren't nearly as popular as the originals. However, by 1975, all Silverliners, including the single-door OV-15 and OV-25, were available as HPS units. More new manufacturers entered the streetlighting industry. ITT (also known as American Electric, or ITT/American Electric) developed two new fixtures, the Model 13 and Model 25. The Model 25 was later the basis for a larger lookalike, the Model 327. All three fixtures had a boxy look that usually sported grinning diffusers, a nod to the OV-15s and M250s. (Of the three fixtures, only the Model 327 is still in production.) The Model 327, along with GE's M1000 and Westinghouse's OV-50, sported 700–1000 watt lights (see table). Earlier versions of the M1000 and OV-50 (and, in very rare instances, the Model 327) are noted for having fins on top of the fixture. As newer ones were made, the fins were eliminated. Some well-known light fixtures came from the Line Material Company. In the 1960s, during the height of the mercury lights' popularity, Line Material produced the Unistyle 400 and the smaller Unistyle 175. Both of these fixtures combined various characteristics of the Silverliners and GE M-series fixtures. When the sodium era began around 1970, the company (by then, renamed McGraw-Edison) produced the boxy, rectilinear, more simplified Unidoor 400 (for metropolitan expressways and city boulevards) and Unidoor 175 (for smaller residential streets and alleys). In 1982, the entire Silverliner line was discontinued, when Cooper Lighting bought Westinghouse's streetlighting division. Today, Cooper still makes the OV-50, now called the OVL. It also continues to manufacture the OV-15 and OV-25 models for sale in Canada. GE and Cooper continued to take streetlighting to new heights. GE was a pioneer in the full-cutoff arena, when it created a spinoff of the popular M400 and the rarer M250 in 1975. This fixture is noted for its pointed front end and lack of a diffuser. In addition, high-mast assemblies were developed for the light towers that were springing up along Interstate highways. In 1988, ITT/American Electric also created spinoffs of its Model 13 and 25. These new fixtures, called the 113 and 125, had a more-rounded look than their respective predecessors. They have become the most popular fixtures not manufactured by GE or Westinghouse. While the Model 125 continues production today, the Model 113 was replaced by the American Electric Model 115 in 2003. In 1992, ITT sold American Electric to Thomas & Betts. In 2001, Thomas & Betts sold the street lighting division to Acuity Brands, where it was then spun off as American Electric Lighting. In the mid-1980s, GE revamped its entire lineup. One, called the M400R2, had a flat bottom reminiscent of the third-generation Silverliners; the other, now called the M400A2, retained the original 1967 design but no longer had the vented door that the previous model did. Also, the M250R2 featured a slightly flatter profile than the M250R it replaced, and the M250A2 now took on the boxy profile that was previously used by the M150. In 1997, the M400 underwent a total redesign, borrowing its styling from the Thomas & Betts Model 125. In 2008, GE resumed production of the M400A2 and M400R2, which are now sold concurrently with the 1997-edition M400 and M400A models. More recently, teardrop lamps (both existing and reproductions) have been used in favor of cobraheads in both urban and suburban areas. They are usually complemented with bishop's crook poles and more elaborate architectural elements. King Luminaire (a division of the StressCrete Group) manufactures these. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of street lighting in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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