Lamplighter

A lamplighter, historically, was an employee of a town who lit street lights, generally by means of a wick on a long pole. At dawn, they would return and turn them off using a small hook on the same pole. Early street lights were generally candles, oil, and similar consumable liquid or solid lighting sources with wicks. Another lamplighter duty was to carry a ladder and renew the candles, oil, or gas mantles. In some communities, lamplighters served in a role akin to a town watchman; in others, it may have been seen as little more than a sinecure. In the 19th century, gas lights became the dominant form of street lighting. Early gaslights required lamplighters, but eventually systems were developed which allowed the lights to operate automatically.

There is a long history of the role of a lamplighter-as-lightbringer as a symbolic figure in literature.

The Burning Man festival makes use of lamplighters.

Lamplighters in Fiction

The Lamplighter was an 1854 novel by Maria Susanna Cummins.
A lamplighter, never actually seen, is the central figure in Bolesław Prus' 1885 micro-story, "Shades."
The Lamplighter was a 1929 collection of poems by Irish poet Seamus O'Sullivan.
A lamplighter who lives on an asteroid that rotates once a minute was one of the inhabitants of the universe in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novel, The Little Prince.
"Lamplighters" are referred to in John le Carré's novels, notably Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), and Smiley's People (1979), frequently associated with their boss, Toby Esterhase; their job is to carry out surveillance.
"Lamplighter" was a 1987 children's story by Bernice Thurman Hunter.
"The Lamplighter" was a Golden Age superhero in Kurt Busiek's Astro City comic books.
Lamplighter (comics) is also the name of a DC Comics supervillain.
Lamplighter is the title of the second book in fantasy author D. M. Cornish's trilogy Monster Blood Tattoo.
"The Lamplighter" is the title of a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in A Child's Garden of Verses

Other uses

"Lamplighter" is a historic nightclub in Vancouver.
"The Lamplighter" is the name of Paul Laurence Dunbar High School's student newspaper in Lexington, Kentucky.
L. Jagi Lamplighter is an American science fiction writer.
Lamplighters Music Theatre, a San Francisco-based light opera company.
Lamplighters Theatre, a Smyrna, Tennessee-based community theatre.
When It's Lamp Lighting Time in the Valley, a song
Lamplighter is a Jewish publication printed weekly and distributed all over Australia and New Zealand. On the web at: http://lamplighterweekly.com/
The Lamplighter group is a mathematical object.
Slang for covert "service" personnel, whose duties include covert surveillance and courier deliveries, and maintaining safe houses.
The Old Lamplighter was a song performed by a country western group, The Browns, in 1960 ([http://www.mp3lyrics.org/t/the-browns/old/ The Old Lamplighter's lyrics])

Translation of "Lamplighter"

Catalan: Fanaler, Dutch: Lantaarnopsteker, Polish: Latarnik, Russian: Фонарщик, Swedish: Lykttändare.