Lightning rod in French fashion

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lightning conductor screen (based on a wood engraving by Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg, 1867)
Lightning protection hats for women (based on a wood engraving by Émile Deschamps and Yan Dargent, 1867)

Lightning rods in French fashion were a passing phenomenon of the late eighteenth century that arose after the introduction of the lightning rod invented by Benjamin Franklin .

Lightning rod hats for women and umbrellas for men were very popular in France, especially in Paris. The fashion was inspired by the idea that a lightning bolt would hit the protective device based on Franklin's ideas and not the person, and that electricity would then flow harmlessly into the ground along a narrow metal chain.

background

The lightning rod, invented by Franklin in the mid-18th century to protect wooden structures, didn't become commonplace in the United States until the 19th century, more than fifty years after he introduced the concept. However, his experiments made electricity a popular subject. His book Experiments and Observations on Electricity had been translated into French. Many of his essays and works had been translated by the French polymath Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg .

When Franklin returned to Paris after the American Declaration of Independence to get France's support against Britain, he was a famous man who was enthusiastically received. After he caused a stir with his fur cap at a reception in Versailles , the ladies even began to lay their wigs in a similar fashion.

Fashion forms

Franklin's friend Barbeu-Dubourg was inspired by this enthusiasm of Franklin's lightning rods to put similar protective devices on umbrellas and women's hats.

The lightning rod umbrella developed for men was an umbrella with a stick made of dry wood and a covering made of silk fabric , which was supposed to serve as an insulator, and a tip that was extended by a metal rod. From this point a metal chain ran over the outside of the open umbrella and down to the floor, creating a conduit for lightning to follow. In French this umbrella was called paratonnerre portatif or parapluie-paratonnerre . Barbeu-Dubourg had a copy of the lightning rod umbrella made by a neighbor, M. Bairin de la Croix, engineer in the cabinet de physique et d'optique du roi , but “unfortunately the spirit defied the custom of its contemporaries and used them against the rage of the storm continued to be normal umbrellas, and the inventor was unsuccessful ”.

For the women, a band woven from metal threads was fastened around a wide woman's hat and connected with a thin silver chain that was supposed to hang over the back of the silk women's clothing and be pulled along the floor. The electricity from a lightning strike would theoretically be conducted into the ribbon along the chain through the insulating silk dress in the ground, thereby protecting the person wearing the hat. The protection expected of this type of hat made it a fad in Paris in 1778, as reported in 1867. This lightning protection hat was called chapeau paratonnerre in French .

distribution

The umbrella and hat seem to have been limited to short-lived Parisian fashion. However, the French doctor and writer Claude Jean Veau De Launay demonstrated a portable, telescopic lightning rod that, when fully extended, was six meters long. It was intended for use by people in the open, such as farmers in their fields.

In a scene in the humorous stage work Le Palais de Cristal ou les Parisiens à Londres for the World Exhibition of 1851 by Louis François Clairville and Jules Cordier (pseudonym of Éléonore Tenaille de Vaulabelle), a lightning hat (chapeau paratonnerre) appears as a “Chinese invention”.

The lightning rod fashion became widespread. For example, it found its way into the Economic Encyclopedia by Johann Georg Krünitz , in German specialist books on fashion, in small daily newspapers in Texas and Pennsylvania as well as in large German-language magazines and specialist journals of the recent past.

present

The LEIFIphysik portal of the Joachim Herz Foundation has included lightning protection fashion as a sample task for teaching electricity in middle school.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For lightning rod mode, cf. z. B. von Karl-Heinz Hentschel: A short cultural history of the thunderstorm . In the section Protective measures then and now , March 1993; accessed on March 29, 2017
  2. ^ A b c Michael Brian Schiffer: Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment . University of California Press, Berkeley CA 2003, ISBN 978-0-520-23802-2 , pp. 190 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  3. ↑ a b James O'Reilly, Sean O'Reilly, Larry Habegger (eds.): Travelers' Tales Paris . Travelers' Tales, San Francisco 1997, ISBN 978-1-60952-074-8 , pp. 184 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ a b Norbert Stern: Mode and Culture . tape 1 . Expedition of the European fashion newspaper (Klemm & Weiß), Dresden 1915, p. 272 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ). - “That was the lightning rod fashion or mode à la Franklin. Electricity in the service of fashion! As bizarre as it was funny, the thought turned out to be. And it never missed its purpose: to attract attention. "
  5. ^ Hans Camenzind: Much Ado about Almost Nothing: Man's Encounter with the Electron . Self-published, 2007, ISBN 978-0-615-13995-1 , pp. 22 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Benjamin Franklin: Experiments and Observations on Electricity . London 1769 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Louis Figuier: Exposition et histoire des principales découvertes scientifiques modern . tape 4 . Langlois et Leclercq, Paris 1857, p. 165–166 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ^ Barbeu Dubourg: Oeuvres de M. Franklin, traduites de l'Anglois sur la quatrième édition par M. Barbeu Dubourg . tape 1 . Quillau, Paris 1773 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ^ Paul Aron: Was it just the kite? The fur cap? How Ben Franklin got maddeningly famous. On: Making History now.com; accessed on March 29, 2017
  10. ↑ a b Louis Figuier: Les Merveilles de la science ou description populaire des inventions modern. Volume 1, Furne, Jouvet et Cie, Paris 1867, chapter Le Paratonnerre. Pp. 491-597; in the French-language Wikisource
  11. ^ A b Philip Dray: Stealing God's Thunder: Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod and the Invention . Random House Publishing Group, New York 2005, ISBN 978-1-58836-461-6 , pp. 148 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ Benjamin Franklin: Oeuvres de M. Franklin ... . Quillau l'aîné, 1773, p. 321.
  13. ↑ Paul Delaunay: Vieux médecins mayennais , 2e série (1904), biography of Barbeu du Bourg, Chapter VI., Les Amis de Barbeu du Bourg , p. 49 ff.  - Internet Archive (especially p. 53: “Malheureusement l'esprit routinier des contemporains persista à n'employer contre les fureurs de l'orage que le vulgaire parapluie, et l'inventeur ne fit pas fortune. ")
  14. ^ Mitchell A. Wilson: American science and invention, a pictorial history; the fabulous story of how American dreamers, wizards, and inspired tinkerers converted a wilderness into the wonder of the world . Bonanza Books, New York 1960, pp. 20 .
  15. ^ Jules Cordier Clairville: Le Palais de Cristal ou les Parisiens à Londres . Beck, Paris 1851, p. 31 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  16. ↑ Parafoudre, paratonnère. In: Oeconomische Encyclopädie , by Johann Georg Krünitz u. a .; Heinrich Gustav Flörke, Volume 107, Pauli, Berlin 1807, p. 448
  17. ↑ The Lightning Rod Fashion . Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas May 13, 1933, pp. 6 ( clipped on Newspapers.com [accessed March 18, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Believe It or Not ... The Record-Argus, Greenville, Pennsylvania May 13, 1933, pp. 6 ( clipped on Newspapers.com [accessed March 18, 2017]).
  19. ↑ Find a sacrifice in the women's huts . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 1975 ( online ).
  20. ↑ Grandfather, fall down gently! n: NZZ , August 7, 1976; accessed on March 29, 2017
  21. ↑ Peter Hasse: The way to modern lightning protection. (PDF) In: Elektropraktiker, Berlin 2008; accessed on March 29, 2017
  22. ↑ Task charges & fields: lightning rod mode on leifiphysik.de; accessed on March 27, 2020