Lightning rod fashion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lightning rod fashion was a fad in late eighteenth-century Europe after the lightning rod, invented by Benjamin Franklin, was introduced.[1][2] Lightning rod hats for ladies and lightning umbrellas for gentlemen were most popular in France, especially in Paris. The concept that inspired the fashion was that a lightning bolt would strike the Franklin-designed protective device instead of the person, and then the electricity would travel down a small metal chain into the ground harmlessly. The technology was already used to some extent in France to protect wooden buildings, and was therefore an accepted science concept that developed into a temporary fashion.
The lightning rod, invented by Franklin in the mid-eighteenth century to protect wooden structures, did not become commonplace in the United States until the nineteenth century, over fifty years after he first unveiled the concept.[3] However, his experiments made electricity a fashionable topic in European society.[4]
