Scenemaster60
Well-Known Member
In response to Steve Terry's post a little over a week ago regarding a discussion of the history of lighting control, I thought I would share some of the research that I have done over the last few months on the development of remote control dimming in the US between 1920 and 1950. The bulk of this research has really been hunting down the source materials that Joel Rubin used for his 1959 doctoral dissertation THE TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT OF STAGE LIGHTING APPARATUS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900-1950. His bibliography is AMAZING and I have had great fun tracking down some of this material!
I have never met Joel personally or had any correspondence with him regarding this material. His dissertation is the only place that I have ever seen the history of remote control lighting using saturateable-core reactors outlined in any detail. Since Joel would have been doing this research before the days of photocopiers, I would presume that all of the source materials would have been referenced personally and compiled in the form of hand-written notes. This means that there was no easy way to include photos or complicated diagrams.
I will start by posting appendix B from the dissertation which gives a list of those venues where remote controlled reactance dimming was installed in the period from 1920-1950.
I have never met Joel personally or had any correspondence with him regarding this material. His dissertation is the only place that I have ever seen the history of remote control lighting using saturateable-core reactors outlined in any detail. Since Joel would have been doing this research before the days of photocopiers, I would presume that all of the source materials would have been referenced personally and compiled in the form of hand-written notes. This means that there was no easy way to include photos or complicated diagrams.
I will start by posting appendix B from the dissertation which gives a list of those venues where remote controlled reactance dimming was installed in the period from 1920-1950.