Neon Signs: Their Origin, Use, and Maintenance Author(s): Michael F. Crowe Source: APT Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 2, Preserving What's New (1991), pp. 30-37 Published by: Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1504382 Accessed: 04-01-2017 02:35 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to APT Bulletin This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 04 Jan 2017 02:35:56 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Neon Signs: Their Origin, Use, and Maintenance MICHAEL F. CROWE Historic neon signs are an History and Development rately called, is simply a vacuum important element on many glass tube fitted at each end with a From the moment neon was first metal in- terminal or electrode. Inside thoroughfares. This article troduced into the United States the in tube the is a small amount of rare outlines their special early 1920s, it was a hit. People gas. Connected to the two electrodes preservation needs often drove for miles to observe is a sourcethe of high-voltage electrical and opportunities. new phenomenon on Main Street. power. This is a neon sign reduced to By the 1930s virtually every itscity essential and elements. In this ideal town could boast of at least one condition, neon a neon sign can have a life sign, more often than not on span the of about thirty to forty years community movie theater. (Fig.Nowa- 1). days, we are all familiar with theThe idea of lighting a tube of glass many manifestations of neon is innot newour to the twentieth century. lives. It can have many uses: In 1709educa- Francis Hawksbee, an tional (crosswalk signs), inspirational Englishman, produced light from (churches), and even outrageous shaking a vacuum tube filled with (think of Las Vegas). But first, mercury. let's Another Englishman, look at the history, terminology, D. McFarland and Moore, was one of the developments of this twentieth- first to successfully experiment with century medium. luminous tube lighting. In the late Neon gas was discovered by nineteenth Sir century, he conceived the William Ramsey in 1898. Luminous idea of using an electromagnetic tube lighting, as neon is more valve accu- for mixing carbon dioxide or 6/iass /ub/ing- Housing , ulevon os . ,osing oMele "f/ecfrode Eleciro'de-- ' box - 6X cable .--High voH/rge cable To l/O vo/ls So Cable suprs , //rae nsforwrner MelalBBoX-' Zow voltage wvring Fig. 1. Schematic layout of a box type neon sign, showing relative location of transformer, mounting parts, cable and tubing. From Neon Techniques and Handling. 30 This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 04 Jan 2017 02:35:56 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms NEON SIGNS 31 nitrogen with a current to provide a Paris. By 1914 there was a neon form of light. These Moore tubes, plant in operation. Claude was which were large diameter nitrogen- granted a patent on January 19, filled tubes, were in use in England N... .... ... ... 1915, for the electrode attachment from 1893 to 1910. The first Moore process. In 1919 the main entrance tube sign in the United States was of the Paris Opera was lit with a erected in 1904 in Newark, New Jer- ~lj~~:S~i::ill~iI~~iiiiii~::::f~ Claude Neon construction in orange Wk... .... ....... ... .. and blue to create an effect that came sey. However, these tubes were very N: 34 ii: short lived, both in practicality and i rr i+:+i to be known as "les couleurs popularity. Opera." Rare gases, of which neon is one, The first neon sign in the United .M.l~ were discovered in the nineteenth i~.:X. X Ae, ~i States was erected in Los Angeles. In N.Miu A. ...MIS.. century. In 1868, helium was discov- 1923 Earle C. Anthony imported two N N N ered by spectroscopic analysis of the .. ............ :0. %dr~"~d~~ signs from Paris made of Claude :,A.N.S-Mi .. .I ..... ... ............ ...... Ntl~La sun and discovered on earth in 1885; 10' ~ j Neon, at a cost of $1,250. They were Lord Rayleigh and Sir William simple signs of orange letters spelling Ramsey discovered argon in 1893; "Packard" surrounded by a blue bor- Sir William went on to discover kryp- der. Thus the popularity of "les ton and xenon in 1898. There is couleurs Opera" was established in more gold dissolved in sea water America with the first sign. than there is xenon in the air, hence Claude began franchising the the name rare gas. Rare gases are method of making his long-life elec- leter ar N. blc stylNditv in a channiiel etia inonig n aque h inert and therefore do not combine lettrs ae bock tyl in chanelmouniXY trode in 1924. Franchises were sold All phtograhs by ::,A;r among each other or with any other in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, substance. Thus they are ideal for San Francisco, Detroit, Pittsburgh, luminous tubes because they can take Boston, Casablanca, and Shanghai. an electrical charge and continue to Franchisees agreed to pay $100,000 maintain their integrity. plus royalties. However, Americans In rainy weather, maximum light were quite enterprising once they transmission occurs at a wavelength learned the technology and quickly of 635 millimicrons, the wavelength set up their own schools, ignoring at which neon has its greatest out- Claude's patent rights. Nationwide, put. Neon, therefore, is ideal for the list of early neon customers in- signage because its natural red color cluded Remington typewriters, Loft shows up even in the poorest weather, candies, American Radiator Com- and it is for this reason especially pany, Eveready batteries, Packard, suited for beacons for aviation and Willys-Knight, Scientific American, marine service. A neon light has five Standard Oil, Burroughs adding times greater visibility but requires machines, and Lucky Strike cigar- less wattage than an incandescent neon and bombarding it with elec- ettes. These customers had their lamp; thus its economical operation tricity he was able to produce a clear standardized signs erected in towns is an added feature. intense red; with argon he produced from coast to coast. Georges Claude, a Frenchman, a grayish blue. The two leading American design- and Karl von Linde, a German, inde- Claude showed the first commer- ers of neon were O.J. Gude and pendently discovered the process for cial luminous tube sign at the Grande Douglas Leigh. Leigh is credited making pure oxygen in response to Palais in Paris in 1910. However, it with the look of Times Square in the need for oxygen by hospitals and was his associate, Jacques Fonseque, New York, the most spectacular dis- for oxyacetylene welding. A side ef- who saw the advertising potential play of neon in the 1930s. Large fect of this process is the production and sold the world's first neon sign to scale neon displays did not come to of rare gases. Claude developed a a barber shop, Palais Coiffeur, on Las Vegas, currently the most in- cheap extraction process but had no Boulevard Montmartre in 1912. The spired display of neon, until 1944, use for the leftover rare gases, until following year the first rooftop sign, when mobster Bugsy Siegal con- he came across a Moore tube. He a three and one-half foot, white-letter structed the Flamingo Hotel, which discovered that by filling a tube with Cinzano sign, was erected, also in featured neon designs eight stories This content downloaded from 132.174.254.12 on Wed, 04 Jan 2017 02:35:56 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 32 APT BULLETIN high. In addition to these expected advertising uses, movie set designers were often innovative in using this new medium decorations. One of the most unusual uses occurred in Busby Berkeley's "Shadow Waltz" sequence from "The Gold Diggers of (b) 1933," which featured a hundred platinum blondes playing violins out- lined in neon! At first, neon signs were added to already existing buildings. By the early thirties neon signage and tubing were being used as an integral part of building design, especially for movie theaters and sometimes on commer- cial buildings. Movie theater mar- quees and vertical signs often were integrated creatively with the facade (Fig. 2). (c) / i \ Types of Signs and Letters There are several kinds of exterior signs: swing or projecting, vertical, fascia, outline skeleton, rooftop, pole, and marquee. A sign with tubing on both sides is called a double-face sign. A swing sign was hung from a bracket so that it could move freely. Probably because of building codes, I - ir== -- ,-- __,- -- , ,._ these signs are extremely rare in their (e)\ original form; some have been mod- ified with bracing to prevent the swing. A projecting sign has guy (t) wire bracing and therefore does not swing. Vertical signs have several ( brackets, attached to one edge of the box so that they can be mounted at the corner or along the facade of a building. Fascia signs are designed to lie flat against a building. Outline skeleton signs are long lengths of Fig.