![]() ![]() With a mandate to keep the light on no matter what, wives and daughters no doubt lit the lamps as well. If a station won an efficiency pennant from the Lighthouse Service, then it was because of everyone’s effort. Women helped pass the white glove inspections when supply ships carrying inspectors visited. ![]() They tended a garden, fed livestock, managed supplies, and inventoried equipment including household goods. Keepers’ wives assisted their husbands in critical capacities. When conditions permitted families to live on a light station everyone helped. It was often necessary for women to serve too even though many were not rewarded officially. ![]() Even though entire families worked from dawn until dusk at light stations across the country, males made up the overwhelming majority of government appointed lighthouse keepers, who received pay for the work they performed. The Lighthouse Service was no exception to this rule. While both sexes had worked equally hard on the frontier during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Industrial Revolution cemented for the next 200-years western views of men’s role as the worker and women’s role in the house. Who do you imagine did these tasks?ĭuring the lighthouse boom of the 19th century, jobs requiring a rugged self-reliance would have been male dominated endeavors. Lighthouse keeping meant a hard life, especially as we think about it today. Alternatively, perhaps it is a long day spent painting the lighthouse tower. When you think about lighthouse keepers, what comes to mind? Maybe it is long, lonely nights dutifully keeping the lamps burning for ships unseen. Alphonso Daniels, 2nd Assistant Keeper, 1928 St. ![]()
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