Myrtle Fahsbender
American lighting expert
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Myrtle Ernestine Fahsbender (January 12, 1907 – May 1, 2001) was an American lighting expert. She was director of home lighting at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, where she worked from 1936 until 1970.
12 January 1907
Myrtle Fahsbender | |
|---|---|
Myrtle Fahsbender, from the 1928 yearbook of the University of Illinois | |
| Born | Myrtle Ernestine Fahsbender 12 January 1907 |
| Died | 1 May 2001 (aged 94) |
| Occupation | Lighting expert |
Early life and education
Fahsbender was born in Chicago, the daughter of Ernest Fahsbender and Sophia Carlberg Fahsbender. Her father was a barber, born in Germany, and her mother was born in Sweden. She graduated from the University of Illinois in 1929,[1] with further studies at the Moser Business College in Chicago.[2] She was a member of Kappa Delta sorority.[3]
Career
Fahsbender began her career as a stenographer. By 1942, she was director of home lighting in the lamp division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation in New Jersey.[4] She retired from Westinhouse in 1970.[5]
Fahsbender gave talks and wrote articles about residential lighting, often aimed at women decorating or updating homes,[6] or at professional decorators and landscape designers.[7][8][9] For example, in 1939, she gave a lectures about the effects of blacklight on patterned fabrics.[10][11] During World War II, she presented ideas for home blackout procedures at the Chicago Lighting Institute, and to audiences of air raid wardens.[4][12] Also during the war, she wrote an instructional booklet with photographs, on repairing frayed electrical cords and changing fuses.[13] She studied domestic lighting fashions in six European countries in 1951,[14] and made a national lecture tour in 1956.[2]
In 1948, Fahsbender was the first woman elected to a directorship in the Illuminating Engineering Society, and the second woman to be named a fellow of the society.[15] In 1951, she was the first American woman delegate and presenter at the International Commission on Illumination, a gathering of lighting engineers in Stockholm.[16] In 1963, she received the first Salute to Women in Electrical Living award, from the New York chapter of the Electrical Women's Round Table, and the New York State Department of Commerce.[17]
Publications
- "Keeping the Blackout Outside Your Home" (1942, pamphlet)[4]
- Residential Lighting (1947, a textbook)[18][19]
- "An Evaluation of Methods and Fixtures Used for Bathroom Mirror Lighting" (1947, with Beryle Priest)[20]
- "Better See-Ability" (1952, booklet)[21]
- "'Light' Work for Your Eyes" (1952)[22]
- "The Forecast is a 'Light' Christmas" (1956)[23]
Personal life
Fahsbender was engaged to marry Ernest V. Goller in 1933.[24] She died in 2001, at the age of 94, in Freehold Township, New Jersey.[5]