c. 1417 – c. 1950 · european & american cities · supplanted by electric street lighting
he walked the same route every evening, in the same order, and went home by another. the pole was longer than he was tall, brass-tipped, with a pilot wick that he kept lit between lamps in the same way one would shield a secret. at each post he reached up, opened the small key in the gas line with the hook on his pole, and touched the wick to the mantle. the lamp came on with a small breath and then with a steady one.
in the morning he came back the other way and put them out. routes were sold and inherited like newspaper rounds. a good lamplighter knew which families were ill — there were curtains he watched for — and which alleys had a rat problem, and which lamps had a faulty mantle that he would re-light three times before climbing up to change. boys followed him a little way for the pleasure of seeing the street come on, lamp after lamp, like an answer to a question.
electrification arrived street by street. wires were strung; switches were thrown from a single station. by 1907 most of new york was unattended. london held out longer — gas lamps still survive in a few corners, lit now by a hidden timer or, in a vanishingly small number, by hand. the men in high-vis coats who service them are not lamplighters. they are the last witnesses.
field note · the lamps came on in a slow ripple, never all at once. you could watch dusk overtake them and see who was winning.