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Lighthouses & Keepers: The U.S. Lighthouse Service and its Legacy
Provides a lively and entertaining account of the history and mythology of American lighthouses, as well as their sometimes crusty keepers. Seven of the nation's lighthouses are discussed in considerable detail, along with a summary of the development of the Lighthouse Service from 1789 onward. B&w photographs, including rarely seen photographs and some maps. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2004
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About the author
Dennis L. Noble
24 books1 followerDennis L. Noble retired from the U.S. Coast Guard as a senior chief petty officer and is the author of Rescue of the Gale Runner.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 11, 2016
"Lighthouses and Keepers" is exactly what the subtitle suggests. It covers the history of the US Lighthouse Service - not just lighthouses and keepers, but also lightships, lighthouse tenders, buoys, fog signals, animals, ghosts, and the history of some representative samples of lighthouses from different parts of the country of different styles. I really liked the range of information covered. The book is written to be accessible to novices, including a glossary, but there are endnotes, a bibliography, and index and the publisher is the Naval Institute Press.
The author states up front that this is a "synthesis" of the subject. At only 180 pages of main text I feel like the author whittled things down a little too finely overall. Using only 7 lighthouses as representative samples in particular. There are a series of basic maps at the end of the book showing the locations of most lighthouses, but a quick look at those maps found numerous errors (including misspelling my local lighthouse as "Jupiter" as "Juniper"). The author's wide net catches many subjects often overlooked by books about lighthouses (such as buoys) but still seems spotty. Automating lighthouses with acetylene is a significant technological change that goes unmentioned. LORAN is explained, but RACON isn't mentioned. Having come out in the 1990s some of the information is also a little dated.
For its length this is a pretty solid and enjoyable read. The author cut themselves a little too short to be great, but I would still recommend this to anyone interested in lighthouses. Mild recommendation to experienced lighthouse readers, strong recommendation to those just starting to learn about lighthouses.
The author states up front that this is a "synthesis" of the subject. At only 180 pages of main text I feel like the author whittled things down a little too finely overall. Using only 7 lighthouses as representative samples in particular. There are a series of basic maps at the end of the book showing the locations of most lighthouses, but a quick look at those maps found numerous errors (including misspelling my local lighthouse as "Jupiter" as "Juniper"). The author's wide net catches many subjects often overlooked by books about lighthouses (such as buoys) but still seems spotty. Automating lighthouses with acetylene is a significant technological change that goes unmentioned. LORAN is explained, but RACON isn't mentioned. Having come out in the 1990s some of the information is also a little dated.
For its length this is a pretty solid and enjoyable read. The author cut themselves a little too short to be great, but I would still recommend this to anyone interested in lighthouses. Mild recommendation to experienced lighthouse readers, strong recommendation to those just starting to learn about lighthouses.
February 12, 2025
Extremely informative; not recommended unless you're reaalllyyy into lighthouses and associated history, but damn I learned a lot. Kinda dry, tightly-packed with information; a good look into a part of history I didn't know much about!
September 9, 2017
Something about lighthouses captured our family’s fancy this past summer, and we found ourselves visiting as many as we could along the western coast of Lake Michigan. Their appeal is aesthetic, certainly, the romance of the shoreline and a lost time passed. But the amount of history—of commerce, technology, transportation—they represent is also significant, and I remembered a colleague who, in the early days of my PhD program, suggested that the history of the US Lighthouse Board would be a good topic for a dissertation, one on which there was still a great deal to be done. After spending some time this summer exploring lighthouses, I figured it might be time to revisit this idea, so I started looking for material. And it turns out the only recent book-length treatment on the topic is Lighthouses & Keepers by Dennis Noble, a survey of the history of the US Lighthouse Service. The book provides an outline of the contours of this history that any more detailed study would be built upon.
Basically, the narrative of lighthouses in the United States goes something like this: the construction of lighthouses in Colonial times and the early days of the republic was haphazard and poorly managed. Their construction and supervision was linked with the collection of customs, and supervision of the lighthouses (or “aids to navigation”) was under the fifth auditor of the US Treasury, a man by the name of Stephen Pleasanton, who would control lighthouses for over thirty years, beginning in the early 1800s. The problem was that besides having no maritime experience, Pleasanton was primarily focused on keeping his political bailiwick as economically lean as possible. Noble claims that Pleasanton, along with his primary contractor, was responsible for retarding the development of lighthouses even as they proliferated on both coasts and the Great Lakes. This growing crisis, which Noble talks about briefly in terms of rising cost to life and commerce because of poor aids to navigation, precipitated the founding of the US Lighthouse Board in 1852.
This is where a detailed study could really sink some teeth into the narrative and provide context. What was the popular, contemporary feeling regarding lighthouses, or were there particular incidents that swung public and government opinion toward founding the Board to address the issue? Noble credits the Board with transforming lighthouse management in a manner of years from “a service of political appointees, with haphazard accomplishment” to a professional government service. How exactly was this accomplished? Part of the explanation, according to Noble, was the composition of the Board, which included civilian scientific representatives (like Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institute) as well as army and navy officers. Part was also the fact that the Board issued detailed instructions for keepers, standardizing equipment and procedures. Part of this was technical innovation as well, with Noble treats briefly in discussions of oil and Fresnel lenses. But all of this discussion in Lighthouses & Keepers is generally superficial, simply one chapter in a longer overview of the Lighthouse Service, which came into being at the Board’s recommendations.
Noble has chapters on all aspects of the Service, not just lighthouses. He discusses lightships (which had a unique history on the Great Lakes), buoys, fog signals, and tenderships (ships that provided service and supplies). All of this provides a snapshot of aspects of the work of the Service, before it was disbanded in 1939— or rather, merged with the US Coast Guard, which again would be an interesting period to examine because, as Noble discusses, Coast Guard were enlisted officers whereas keepers were almost entirely civilian, so the merger of the two organizations inevitably led to some friction. Lighthouses, perhaps more than any other iconic structures, seem to embody history, and Noble's book is an excellent (and perhaps really the only) way to access the institutional history behind them.
Basically, the narrative of lighthouses in the United States goes something like this: the construction of lighthouses in Colonial times and the early days of the republic was haphazard and poorly managed. Their construction and supervision was linked with the collection of customs, and supervision of the lighthouses (or “aids to navigation”) was under the fifth auditor of the US Treasury, a man by the name of Stephen Pleasanton, who would control lighthouses for over thirty years, beginning in the early 1800s. The problem was that besides having no maritime experience, Pleasanton was primarily focused on keeping his political bailiwick as economically lean as possible. Noble claims that Pleasanton, along with his primary contractor, was responsible for retarding the development of lighthouses even as they proliferated on both coasts and the Great Lakes. This growing crisis, which Noble talks about briefly in terms of rising cost to life and commerce because of poor aids to navigation, precipitated the founding of the US Lighthouse Board in 1852.
This is where a detailed study could really sink some teeth into the narrative and provide context. What was the popular, contemporary feeling regarding lighthouses, or were there particular incidents that swung public and government opinion toward founding the Board to address the issue? Noble credits the Board with transforming lighthouse management in a manner of years from “a service of political appointees, with haphazard accomplishment” to a professional government service. How exactly was this accomplished? Part of the explanation, according to Noble, was the composition of the Board, which included civilian scientific representatives (like Joseph Henry, the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institute) as well as army and navy officers. Part was also the fact that the Board issued detailed instructions for keepers, standardizing equipment and procedures. Part of this was technical innovation as well, with Noble treats briefly in discussions of oil and Fresnel lenses. But all of this discussion in Lighthouses & Keepers is generally superficial, simply one chapter in a longer overview of the Lighthouse Service, which came into being at the Board’s recommendations.
Noble has chapters on all aspects of the Service, not just lighthouses. He discusses lightships (which had a unique history on the Great Lakes), buoys, fog signals, and tenderships (ships that provided service and supplies). All of this provides a snapshot of aspects of the work of the Service, before it was disbanded in 1939— or rather, merged with the US Coast Guard, which again would be an interesting period to examine because, as Noble discusses, Coast Guard were enlisted officers whereas keepers were almost entirely civilian, so the merger of the two organizations inevitably led to some friction. Lighthouses, perhaps more than any other iconic structures, seem to embody history, and Noble's book is an excellent (and perhaps really the only) way to access the institutional history behind them.
February 9, 2022
It took me a while to read this book because was reading other stuff in between. Also, I misplaced it and couldn't find it. A really, really interesting and informative book. Loved reading about the lightships and tenders especially because had no knowledge of them. Loved how the author talked about how the lighthouse and lightships were built and what work the tenders performed. Really enjoyed this one.
August 15, 2019
An excellent and readable history of U.S. lighthouses.
August 25, 2022
Good overview of the topic. A must for an organizational history of lighthouses and the individuals who operated them.
July 12, 2010
Good history of the services that administed the lighthouses and other navigational maritime aids in the United States. Some obvious mistakes with information presented as factual so some shadow on the trustworthiness of author. Also, obvious author bias for and against some organizations and a lot of jargon not included in glossary. Thought this a good starting point and will look at books listed in bibliography.
March 15, 2018
Great resource for lighthouse fans.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews