Hello and welcome to Episode Thirty Five of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I'm your host, Hannah!
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The English Language Transcript can be found below
But as always we start with Reader's Advisory!
The Reader's Advisory for Episode Thirty Five is Queen of the Conquered by Kacen Callender. If you like Queen of the Conquered you should also check out: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin, Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi, and A Song of Wraith and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown.
My personal favorite Goodreads list Queen of the Conquered is on is Books with Snakes on the Cover.
Happy Reading Everyone
Today’s Library Tidbit is on candles and candle making.
On April 13th the library is running program on how to make soy wax candles. Spaces are limited and supplies are limited but if you are interested and can’t make it I will be going over some basics of candles and candle making today.
Some of the earliest evidence we have for candles is found in Ancient Egypt. This isn’t to say that other civilizations weren’t using candles before then, just that most of the evidence we have for them is from Egypt. The earliest candles were maybe closer to torches than the candles that we recognize today. These types of lights are referred to as a rushlight. The dried pith, a specific tissue in the stem of plants, of a rush plant is coated in fat or grease and that is lit on fire. By 3000 BC Ancient Egyptians were using wicked candles.
Ancient Romans are general credited by with developing the wicked candle by rolling papyrus and dipping it into melted tallow or beeswax until it was coated enough to form a candle. However, other civilizations also developed wicked candles of different makes. The Chinese would form wicked candles by molding paper tubes and using rolled rice paper for wicks. The wax for these candles came from several places including insects, seeds, and whale fat. In Japan candles were made of wax from tree nuts and in India candle wax came from boiling the fruit of the cinnamon tree.
In Europe up until the Middle Ages candles, it seems, were exclusively made from tallow. Tallow for those that don’t know is made from animal fat. It smells terribly when burned and also releases a lot of sooty smoke. During the Middle Ages beeswax made its way to Europe. Now beeswax was very expensive at the time so only the very wealthy and the church could afford beeswax candles, but slowly over the years beeswax candles took over from tallow candles. The reason being that beeswax smokes significantly less and also smells much nicer.
The next major change in candles occurred in the 18th Century when whaling provided spermaceti to the economy. Spermaceti wax candles were harder than tallow and beeswax and so didn’t melt during the summer which was a major plus for them. They also burned brighter. However, over whaling for products has caused lasting effects on the world so overall a bit of a net evil.
In the 1820s French Chemist Michel Eugene Chevreul figured out for to get stearic acid from animal fatty acid. This lead to the creation of stearin wax which is hard, durable, and burned cleanly. Like the spermaceti candles but with less destruction to the natural world. You can still find stearin candles to this day.
In the 1850s chemists figured out how to get paraffin wax from petroleum. Paraffin has an extremely low melt temperature but adding stearic acid to it help to harden it for use in candles. As the oil industry grew the available amount of paraffin grew. However, as with the spermaceti candles, and as we went over in the last podcast, the oil and gas use from humans has created global warming which we have about a decade to reverse to prevent even more extinction and destruction so again, bit of a net evil.
In the 1990s US agricultural chemists developed the soybean wax candle.
