Schivelbusch Disenchanted Night

Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s Disenchanted Night delineates the history of the industrialisation of light from the candle through the incandescent light bulb, demonstrating the relationship between the development of artificial light and the social, political, and economic milieu from which it emerged. This process was dependent on two social contexts which were integral to the pace and direction of the development of lighting technology, the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment. The Industrial Revolution necessitated the rapid industrialisation of light, as the emergence of factory production demanded light that was more powerful and cost effective in order to illuminate the factories and facilitate production that went beyond that permitted
Central to this was the gradual development of a flame used exclusively for lighting. Initially, fire simultaneously provided heat, lighting, and enabled cooking (Schivelbusch, 4). As fire was rationalised and scientifically refined, these functions were gradually isolated, beginning with light (Schivelbusch, 4). Schivelbusch points to the connection between the Enlightenment and what he refers to as Lavoisier’s ‘chemical enlightenment’, which was the discovery
The discovery that flames were fed by oxygen spurred a paradigm shift in chemistry, which entailed a parallel shift in lighting technology (Schivelbusch, 9). For the first time, consideration was given to the relationship between the a flame’s quality and its air supply, and this became integral to the further development of lighting technology (Schivelbusch, 9). Furthermore, the flame was newly conceived as manipulable by scientific rationality rather than a ‘natural’, unalterable thing. This discovery preceded a long period refinement of the flame via the use of different wicks and methods for enclosing the flame to channel and intensify its oxygen supply (Schivelbusch,