When Was the Flashlight Invented?

The first patented flashlight was a lamp in a paper tube. David Misell filed the application in 1898, and the Letters Patent were granted on January 10, 1899. Energizer dates its first Ever Ready torch to 1898 and the Eveready name to 1906. Flashlights became a household tool beginning in 1910.

The records split on when was the flashlight invented, between 1898 and 1899, and they name David Misell and Conrad Hubert. Google Patents shows Misell with the 1899 grant, while Energizer shows the company of Hubert making its first torch in 1898, so one source gives the patent and the other gives the first product. Cooper Hewitt is the source for the 1910 household boom.

When Was the Flashlight Invented, and by Whom?

David Misell is the person named as inventor of the first patented flashlight. U.S. Patent 617,592 is the document, and Electric Device is the title it carries. On Google Patents the application was filed on March 12, 1898, and the Letters Patent are dated January 10, 1899. Wikipedia calls Misell a British inventor in its account of the lamp. Assignment of the patent went to American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company. Cooper Hewitt, in the note called A handheld light, says the first flashlight was conceived in the late 1890s. Safe handheld use is the purpose that note gives for the new lamp. Wikipedia describes the cells as D batteries laid front to back in a paper tube. A light bulb and a rough brass reflector sat at the end of the tube in that description.

Illustration (AI-generated) of an early battery lamp with three cells in a tube, based on the patent description.

Misell signed the specification in New York city on March 4, 1898, before the filing date on the patent. The caption Wikipedia gives for the patent drawings says they show a cross section of a flashlight with three cells, a reflector and a lens. The company donated some of these devices to the New York City police, who responded favorably to them. Cooper Hewitt says the New York City police were among the first to use early flashlights, alongside the favorable response Wikipedia records from those donated devices.

Where Does Conrad Hubert Fit With the First Eveready Light?

Energizer says Conrad Hubert acquired the patent for the first Eveready flashlight in 1898. The patent record tells another story, and the two accounts do not meet on the year or on the man each one names. That record is dated January 10, 1899, it names David Misell, and neither source spells out how the two records connect to each other. Hubert was the founder of the American Ever-Ready Company, the firm the Energizer account names for him. He tried electric tie tacks and electric flower-pots before he had the hand flashlight. After those tries, he lit up New York City in the 1890s, using dry cell batteries and his electric hand flashlight to do it. The Ever Ready trademark first appeared on end caps in 1902. In 1906 the product name changed to Eveready, the name used from that year forward.

In the Energizer account of the first lamps, in that brand history, those lights were hand-made from crude paper and fiber tubes, and each lamp carried a bulb together with a rough brass reflector. Wikipedia describes the 1899 flashlight as a fiber tube fitted with brass end caps and a bulls-eye glass lens at one end of the tube. The paper tube in those hand-made lights matches the paper tube in the patent description of the 1899 lamp.

Matt Rice: When we write up light history for the catalog, I anchor on 1899, Conrad Hubert / American Electrical Novelty and the early Ever Ready battery lights, not someone invented the flashlight yesterday.

So Why Is It Called a Flashlight?

It is called a flashlight because the early lights could only shine in short flashes, and the name belongs to that short run of light. Early flashlights ran on zinc-carbon batteries, which could not give a steady current and needed to rest. Energy-inefficient carbon-filament bulbs were the other limit, so the lamps could only be used in brief flashes. Wikipedia gives those battery and bulb limits as the source of the North American name. Commonwealth English says electric torch. If you follow Cooper Hewitt, you are looking at a large dry-cell battery pack that made only enough power for the light to shine for a moment or two at a time. On the Energizer account, weak batteries and primitive bulbs gave only a brief flash of light, which is where the name comes from.

So When Was the Flashlight Invented, and When Did Homes Start Using One?

Flashlights became a popular household tool beginning in 1910, on the Cooper Hewitt account, because of advances in batteries and the tungsten filament bulb. Dry cells came first. Wikipedia dates the first dry cell to 1887 and the first mass-produced dry cells to 1896. That 1887 cell used a paste electrolyte instead of a liquid, did not spill or break easily, worked in any orientation, and was the first battery suitable for portable electrical devices. Carbon-filament bulbs and crude dry cells made early flashlights an expensive novelty with low sales. Portable electric lights offered convenience and safety over combustion torches, candles and lanterns. An electric lamp was odorless and smokeless, emitted less heat, could be switched on and off instantly, and avoided fire risk. Hand-held electric lights began to replace combustion lamps such as the hurricane lantern. Wikipedia places development of the tungsten lamp in 1904. Energizer places the Eveready tungsten filament bulb in 1910, the year Eveready introduced it.

Illustration (AI-generated) comparing a carbon filament bulb on the left and a tungsten filament bulb on the right.

You could read fruit labels, identify refrigerator contents, fill gas stove tanks and signal with Morse code. Cooper Hewitt describes those uses in an Eveready brochure titled 101 Uses for an Eveready. That brochure, as Cooper Hewitt quotes it, calls the flashlight "the light that does not flicker in a draught, extinguish in the wind". Tungsten had three times the efficacy of carbon filament types, which is the comparison Wikipedia draws. By the end of the 1930s, 60 companies in China made flashlights, some selling for as little as one-third the cost of equivalent imported models.

How Did Flashlights Change After 1910?

If you follow the Energizer timeline of Eveready torches from that brand history, the changes after 1910 come one dated product at a time. In 1926 Eveready added a ring hanger to a torch. By 1937 Eveready had introduced a pre-focused torch bulb. Eveready rolled out its first thermoplastic moulded torch in 1966. A year later, in 1967, Eveready had its first rechargeable torch. The first waterproof torch came in 1970. That torch had a push-button switch. The 1975 Eveready economy light is the torch Energizer calls the world's most popular torch. Eveready introduced its first fluorescent torch in 1983. In 1984 Eveready introduced the first 2D Halogen torch, which Energizer says is brighter than vacuum, Krypton or Xenon bulbs. Eveready added its first Squeeze Light in 1986. Wikipedia says incandescent flashlight bulbs are under vacuum or filled with argon, krypton or xenon. Wikipedia says a two-D-cell flashlight with a common prefocus-style lamp makes on the order of 15 to 20 lumens, against about 900 lumens for a 60-watt household incandescent lamp.

After those 1980s torches, LEDs are the next light source on the record. Energizer introduced its first LED light in 1996, in the form of a squeeze light, a compact area light and a bicycle light. Energizer says an LED light source gives longer runtime and never needs replacing. Wikipedia reports that LEDs have replaced incandescent bulbs in most flashlights since the early 2000s, and that Maglite made its first LED flashlight in 2006. You are looking at different products behind those dates, which is why the sources give different LED dates.

Where Does a Modern LED Rifle Light Fit?

The Ozark Armament Rail Mount LED Rifle Light is a modern descendant of the paper-tube light. A weapon light is a flashlight built to ride on a rail, and you set this one on a standard Picatinny rail to mount it on the rifle. Current price on the product page is $39.99, marked down from a listed price of $59.99, and that page shows a 33 percent saving on that listed price. A Cree XML U2 LED gives up to 600 lumens of white light. Four light modes are controlled with interchangeable tail switches. CR123A batteries ship included with the light. It is rated IP65 water resistant, per the product page, and the light is also shock proof and dust-resistant. A remote switch with pressure activation plus a standard on/off switch is included. The housing is a tough lightweight aluminum alloy. Ozark Armament sells the light with a No B.S. Lifetime Warranty.

A verified buyer of the Rail Mount LED Rifle Light wrote "Mounts easy and sturdily to picatinny. Easy usage and very bright." and another verified buyer wrote "it's plenty bright, mounted easily, and didn't budge through several mags of 5.56!" A verified buyer gave this limit before you buy, "A bit too long for under barrel mounting if you use any kind of grip or bipod." The light needs a Picatinny or 1913 rail, it runs on CR123A cells, and IP65 means water resistant, not waterproof. Where a rifle has no rail, or when you want a light to carry in a pocket, a handheld flashlight is the better fit, and Cooper Hewitt describes vest-pocket models from the 1910 boom. If you want a light and a laser on one rifle, see the Ozark Armament guide on whether a weapon light laser combo is worth it.

Matt Rice: Modern LED duty lights we sell are a different animal from those carbon-filament tubes, but the job is the same: put a beam where your hands aren't free.

Matt Rice: I still tell people a light is a tool first and a fire hazard second; history helps explain why today's candela numbers matter.

Browse the best ar 15 light range from Ozark Armament, plus pistol lights and laser light combos.

Readers who still have a flashlight question can turn to can a flashlight start a fire for a separate practical answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Did flashlights exist in 1920?

A: Yes. Wikipedia says that by 1907 there were tubular flashlights, lantern flashlights, penlight flashlights and searchlight-style flashlights. Cooper Hewitt quotes an Eveready brochure, and the quote ends "It's the light everyone needs." Beginning in 1910, flashlights took the form of lanterns and lamps, and Cooper Hewitt dates the start of the household boom to that same year.

Q: Were there flashlights in the 1950s?

A: Yes. For the 1950s, Energizer records a 1956 acquisition in its Flashlight History of Eveready torches. Eveready acquired V.K. Song & Co. Ltd, the firm now called Sonca, a maker of aluminium torches. Cooper Hewitt says that beginning in 1910, in the years before that 1956 acquisition, flashlights took the form of lanterns and lamps.

Q: Were there flashlights in 1910?

A: Yes. The household boom falls in 1910 on the Cooper Hewitt account, and 1910 is also the year Energizer gives for the Eveready tungsten filament bulb. The Eveready name had been in use since 1906, when the product name changed. Cooper Hewitt quotes an Eveready brochure that calls the lamp a light that "is controlled instantly by finger pressure."

Q: Did flashlights exist in 1923?

A: Yes. Wikipedia estimates 10 million flashlight users in the United States in 1922, and the yearly sales of flashlights and renewal batteries came to $20 million in that year. An Eveready brochure that Cooper Hewitt quotes ends on the line "It's the light everyone needs." Wikipedia sets that $20 million beside the sales of many line-operated electrical appliances.

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ARTICLE WRITTEN BY MATT RICE, OWNER OF OZARK ARMAMENT