Light Touch
A Scintillating Spectacle of Light
In the early 20th century, a visionary light engineer combined art and science to create the Scintillator—pioneering light as a spectacle.
Niagara Falls illuminated at night. Walter Ryan was the first to light the entirety of the falls in 1907. [Getty Images]
On the evening of Thursday, 12 July 1906, something strange was afoot in Nahant, Mass., USA. Crowds gathered in anticipation, directed there by an advertisement in the Daily Evening Item. Personnel from General Electric Company (GE) in nearby Lynn, Mass., had gathered to set up a peculiar device. It consisted of a tall, Christmas-tree-like structure of pipes carrying steam from a generator and a bank of five searchlights on a platform, each handled by an operator who could swivel the light in any direction, and with a set of colored gelatin filters that could be placed in front of them.
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