This lamp and open carbon arc lamps like it were a common sight in urban areas from the mid 1880's through the late 1890's . They operated as street lamps on DC constant current series circuits of about 10 amps. The use of two sets of carbons meant the rods in each lamp needed to be replaced every other day with one set lasting about 8 hours. after which the lamp mechanism switched to the second set of rods. These lamps fell out of favor and were obsolete by the beginning of the 20th century. By 1905 virtually all of them had been scrapped.

The three biggest manufacturers of these early open arc lamps were Thomson-Houston, Fort Wayne Electric, and the Brush Electric Company along with a number of smaller manufacturers. Very few of these once ubiquitous lamps were historically preserved and I know of none on public display in any museum today. This lamp was manufactured by the Fort Wayne Electric Corporation around 1893.

This is what this lamp would have looked like in service [id=794977234]