Electrolier

This 6' diameter crystal electrolier (chandelier) hangs from the dome of the Minnesota State Capitol rotunda. A manual winch originally lowered it about 120' to the floor for maintenance, as seen in the ca. 1910 photograph.

Access Door of the Minnesota State Capitol Electrolier Open to Show Bulbs

Electrolier was the name for a fixture, usually pendent from the ceiling, for holding electric lamps. The word is analogous to chandelier, from which it was formed. For a fine poetical if somewhat confusing description of such a lamp in a Metropolitan Railway ("Early Electric") station dining room, see Sir John Betjeman's poem "The Metropolitan Railway - Baker Street Station Buffet" from his collection "A Few Late Chrysanthemums" (1954): "Early Electric! With what radiant hope / Men formed this many-branched electrolier, / Twisted the flex around the iron rope / And let the dazzling vacuum globes hang clear, / And then with hearts the rich contrivance fill’d / Of copper, beaten by the Bromsgrove Guild."

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  Electrolier in the Grand Staircase of Sheffield Town Hall, England

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  Electrolier in the National Farmer's Bank of Owatonna, Minnesota Postcard ca. 1910

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  1894 bronze electrolier with 45 branches in Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, Albion, NY

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "^{article name needed}". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.