A book talk and conversation with Jeremy Zallen (Lafayette College) on American Lucifers: The Dark History of Artificial Light, 1750-1865, which tells a story of how from whale oil to kerosene, from the colonial period to the end of the U.S. Civil War, modern, industrial lights brought wonderful improvements and incredible wealth to some. But for most workers, free and unfree, human and nonhuman, these lights were catastrophes.
