HATFIELD — The lights were on and Kathie Gow was hard at work Thursday morning at the Hatfield Historical Society, preparing for the organization’s latest exhibit.
If you look closely at those lights illuminating the room above the town’s library, you’ll notice something interesting about them. The original light fixtures were clearly designed for gas lamps, but were at some point converted to electricity.
“As the light changed, it changed how people lived,” Gow said, describing the many ways Hatfield residents have produced light in their town over several centuries.
That is the subject of the Hatfield Historical Society’s latest exhibit “Out of the Darkness: The History of Illumination in Hatfield,” which will open on Sunday, Dec. 23, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Attendees can see an old-school kerosene “flashlight,” for example, or trim kerosene lantern wicks. The exhibit is part of Hatfield’s 38th annual Luminarium Celebration, when residents light the town’s main drags with candlelit milk jugs and paper bags.
The illumination exhibit explores how town residents have lit their homes and workplaces over the years, the dangers associated with those various lighting options and the how those choices different between social classes. The exhibits curators, in addition to Gow, are Meguey Baker, the museum’s collections assistant, and Bob Osley, a board member.
Examples of those lighting alternatives include whale-oil lamps, fancy gas jets used in wealthy residents’ houses and a “hogscraper” candlestick — a metal object that resembled the tool people would use to scrape bristles off hog hides during the fall harvest.
There are many artifacts from Hatfield’s past, but also reproductions created by Osley. There is a replica “fat burner,” where people would burn fat before candlesticks became common, and a wood lamp that essentially holds large splinters that people would keep lit.
“So much work,” was how Gow described the process of keeping a place lit before electricity. “That is one of the big themes of the exhibit.”
The exhibit pulls together details from a wide variety of sources. For example, business records from the Porter & McLeod Machine Shop show workers putting in less hours during the winter — a sign they didn’t have lighting. Or the photo from 1899 of the town clerk sitting in the same room the historical society now sits in, large overhead kerosene lamps lighting the room.
“It’s such a learning experience for us that we pass on to those coming,” Gow said of researching the history of light in Hatfield.
One question the historians wanted to answer was when electricity came to Hatfield. The answer came, surprisingly, in a pamphlet from the Western Massachusetts Electric Company for the town’s 275th anniversary. In the ad, the company mentioned how electric lines were strung across the river from Amherst in 1906.
In addition to unique methods of lighting, the exhibit explores questions like how those methods changed depending on a person’s social class. Ornate whale-oil lamps, which burned clean and bright, are juxtaposed with kerosene lamps, which were cheaper to fuel but smelled bad and had to be cleaned daily.
“Lighting was also more dangerous if you weren’t wealthy,” Gow said, adding that the options available for poor families tended to be more flammable.
Lighting is something many take for granted nowadays, but Gow said advances in lighting options drastically changed people’s lives over history. Portable lamps meant people could work in the barn after dark, or could read or knit later at night. It also changed the fashions people sported after the sun went down, like when kerosene lamps were introduced in 1860.
“When you get there, now you can have beaded dresses and purses and things,” Gow said, describing how the light would reflect off of those clothes and accessories.
In addition to the exhibit, the Hatfield Historical Society has also posted a blog post, written by volunteer Rob Wilson, detailing some of its findings.
Luminarium events will coincide with the exhibit’s opening. Storytime at the library begins at 5 p.m. and caroling at the Town Hall begins at 6 p.m. A concert follows at the Congregational Church at 7 p.m.
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that a pamphlet from the Western Massachusetts Electric Company was for the town’s 275th anniversary. Photo captions have also been updated to reflect the names of the exhibits three curators.