Can you imagine your home without electric lights? (Can you imagine it with the "hanging electric lamp" shown here?) One of the great changes of the late Victorian era was the transition from gaslights to electric lights, both in the streets and in the home. But we're not so far from those Victorians who hadn't yet made the change - and many didn't, for while electricity soon became readily available in the city, the country was another matter. My grandparents had a cabin in the California mountains that didn't get "wired" until 1959. And a friend in Nigeria tells me that they often have only an hour or two of electric power per day - whereupon he rushes to plug in his computer and get some work done. Even today, not everyone can take this Victorian "miracle" for granted!

The Electric Light at the Paris Exhibition, by J. Munro (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1878)

An "enlightening" look at this new technology!

Electric Light (Demorest, 1879)

New Forms of Electric Lamp (Scribner's, 1879A)

Progress in Electric Lighting (Scribner's, 1879A)

From Candles to Gas, by J. Munro (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1880)

Though not technically about electricity, this leads to the article below...

From Gas to Electricity (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1880)

The New Light, by Charles Barnard (St. Nicholas, 1882B)

Some of the latest developments in electricity.

Recent Progress in the Application of Electricity to Railroads (Century Magazine, 1882B)

Household Electricity (Cassell's Family Magazine, 1883)

Recent Electrical Progress, by Charles Barnard (Century Magazine, 1885A)

Improvements in lighting in general and street-lighting in particular, with methods of burying wires and cables for lighting and telegraphy; applications of electricity for railroads.

Something Electricity Is Doing, by Charles Barnard (Century Magazine, 1889A)

The Lighting of Towns, by James Clephan (Monthly Chronicle of North-County Lore and Legend, 1890)

The Henry, by T.C. Mendenhall (Atlantic Monthly, 1894)

A unit of electrical measurement.

The Lamp-Post Up to Date: A Novel Experiment (Home Magazine, 1898)

A lamp post that also serves as a hot water dispenser!

The Electric Fountain, by Arthur Lord (The Strand, 1898B)

Illuminated fountains were a wonderful new thing in 1898.