headlight glare – American Car Historian

November 4, 2024November 4, 2024

Another Early Anti-Glare Headlight Lens

The very modern problem of headlight glare has roots going back to the earliest days of automobile travel. Companies such as Osgood and Liberty developed some interesting lenses in an attempt to alleviate the problem, and Warner-Patterson also took a stab at it with this unique lens that looks like it is covered with bubbles:

The company called it a Warner-Lenz, and it is marked with a 1912 patent date. The following description of the lens appeared in a 1917 issue of the Automobile Trade Journal:

On the front of the Warner-Lenz are rows of small lenses and on the back are similar rows which overlap so that all the light coming from the lamp is diffused in a spray which covers almost 180 deg. with a gradual reduction of intensity toward the sides. The light is thrown all over the road and on both sides so that everything in front of the car may be clearly seen for from 300 to 500 ft. in front of the car.

The New York Secretary of State officially declared the Warner-Lenz to be legal, according to this 1918 advertisement. The square in the middle of the page also contains the names of makes that were using the lens as standard equipment with Packard and Stutz topping the list.

The ad also claims there were more than a million pairs of these lenses in use at this time. Whether that statement is truth or hyperbole, there do not seem to be too many survivors. There are currently only a handful of listings on eBay with prices ranging from $59 to $299.

1920 Stutz Bearcat Series H Roadster with Warner-Lenz headlight lenses
Attribution: Sicnag, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

February 11, 2023August 7, 2023

The Liberty Lens, Manufactured by the Macbeth-Evans Glass Company

It never ceases to amaze me how many glass headlight lenses have managed to survive the rough-and-tumble of the last one hundred years or so. We purchased a large box of such lenses the other day, and two of them were marked “Liberty Lens” with patent dates of 1914 and 1920.

They were manufactured by Macbeth-Evans, a glass company that formed in 1899 when three separate companies combined. That move gave the new entity control of the five largest “lamp chimney” factories in the United States. Like all manufacturers, Macbeth-Evans had to adjust with the changing times, and that included the manufacturing of lenses for automobiles.

States were enacting laws in the teens and twenties regarding headlight glare and acceptable lenses, and Macbeth-Evans wasn’t afraid to use fear of law enforcement as a marketing tool. The advertisement below declares, “State Highway patrols will accost all motorists whose lights do not comply with the new law. Everybody violating the new law will be subject to arrest, a $25 fine, or 5 days’ imprisonment.”

The Liberty lenses were flat with “seven horizontal and six vertical prisms” that controlled and distributed the light, free from glare.

These lenses were available for any motorist to purchase, but, according to these advertisements, they also came as standard equipment on some makes. This ad from 1923 specifically mentions Studebaker:

This advertisement from 1920 enumerates the many different makes that utilized Liberty lenses as standard equipment, including Packard and Nash, so you might keep an eye out for a pair if you own one of the automobiles on this list:

1918 Case Six with a Liberty Lens on the passenger side. This car is located at Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska.

November 6, 2021September 10, 2023

Some Things Never Change . . . Like Headlight Glare

A New York Times article from earlier this year about the unpleasant intensity of LED headlights contained the following hilarious quote:

“Complaints about headlight glare are not new, and date back at least 20 years.”

Um, yes, complaints about headlight glare do date back at least 20 years. Or over 100 years. Whatever.

During the mid-1910s, state legislatures began addressing the problem of headlight glare. In July of 1917, a new California law took effect that required headlight beams to rise no more than 42 inches at a point measured 75 feet or more in front of the car. The following year, the New York legislature passed a law that contained the following specific requirements:

Some motorists were trying things like bending the headlight brackets or painting part of the bulbs to lessen glare, but there were other options. In conjunction with New York’s 1918 law, the New York Secretary of State actually named 45 anti-glare devices that had already been developed and that would put a vehicle in compliance. One of the devices appearing on that list was called the Osgood lens, and I recently found a couple of survivors:

The idea behind this lens was the use of 12 horizontal prisms to direct all of the light outward and downward. The company claimed that the Osgood lens provided 74% more brightness on the road than regular lenses because none of the light was wasted by being thrown into the air.

I am not sure who deserves the credit for these innovative lenses. According to the patent number embossed on one of them, they were invented by a man named Emerson Clark. Newspaper stories and ads at the time variously said the lenses were “perfected by,” “designed by” or “invented by” this handsome man, James R. Cravath:

Cravath was described as “one of America’s foremost authorities on illumination,” and that appears to be an accurate depiction. The Illuminating Engineering Society still lists one of his 1908 papers on its list of 100 Significant Papers. A 1918 issue of Electrical Review described Cravath as a consulting engineer and executive in the electrical industry as well as the editor of publications such as Electrical World.

This story illustrates why I love this era of American history. There was a problem (headlight glare), at least 45 people had already developed devices to solve the problem and those devices were made right here in America. Also, men’s hairstyles were better.

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