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This 1934 General Electric advertisement in Collier’s Magazine, while now an historical artifact that has helped preserve a small part of maritime history, was in part, an outright deception that misled the consumer. It may also have foretold the future of three lighthouse towers, an island community and what were once two great American companies, one now out of business and the other seeing its light grow dim in modern times.
The 75 year old advertisement told of how lighthouse keeper William J. Faulkner is a man without a neighbor. The text of the advertisement says, “Like his father and his father’s father before him, he keeps the lamps burning in Devil’s Island Lighthouse - miles off the barren Nova Scotia coast. Yet the isolation and stark loneliness his father and grandfather knew are not his lot - thanks to modern radio . . . a new General Electric Allwave set.” Yes, the radio dramatically changed the lives of not only the lighthouse keepers in remote locations, it also changed the world.
The advertisement continued by saying, “As the angry Atlantic spends its fury on the rocks, he and his family listen to scores of American and Canadian stations . . . delight in music winged from London, Paris and Berlin . . .and get the headline news of two busy hemispheres.”
It might be hard for us to visualize what it was like in the days before our modern communications, but when W. J. Faulkner was growing up as a child at the lighthouse where his father had been the lighthouse keeper before him, there was no radio at the lighthouse and news from the outside world was slow to reach them and only arrived when a newspaper was brought by a supply ship or from a visit to the mainland.
But, finally in 1934 they had a radio. The news they heard would have been varied in those days; telling of the Canadian Bank being formed, the new U.S. prison opening on Alcatraz Island where an American lighthouse keeper was stationed, the announcement of the first Three Stooges film or the first Shirley Temple movie, which in itself would have been amazing to hear about since they were so far away from the nearest movie theatre. They would also have heard that Adolph Hitler became the Fuehrer of Germany, an event that would change the world.
We may never know if the Faulkner family purchased this radio on their own, or it was a promotional gift from General Electric to be used for public relations and advertisement purposes. More than likely, the price tag of this radio, at $149.50 was way too expensive for the salary of a lighthouse keeper with a family to support, especially in the 1930s.
Regardless, General Electric felt that it was important enough to use a lighthouse and a lighthouse keeper’s family from a remote location to purchase a full page advertisement in Collier’s National Weekly, with its circulation of over 2 million, to promote the radio. On the other hand, there may have been a behind the scene deal between Collier’s and General Electric. At that time, Collier’s was in a circulation battle with its closest competitor, the Saturday Evening Post, and they had launched their own world wide radio program, “The Collier Hour.” The radio program, a combination of news, music, sports and commentary, might have promoted the fact that a Collier’s subscriber who was a lighthouse keeper, listened to the Collier Hour on his General Electric radio on a remote island lighthouse off the coast of Canada. In those days that would have made for a great story in itself as well as fantastic public relations for Collier’s and General Electric.
However, since the two lighthouse towers on Devil's Island were apparently not impressive enough for the advertising gurus at General Electric, they used their “artistic license” and substituted Canada’s impressive Sambro Island Lighthouse Station in the advertisement. Today, we would call this deceptive advertising. Unfortunately, in those days, most of the millions of subscribers to Collier’s National Weekly thought they were looking at an image of Devil’s Island Lighthouse, when in fact they were looking at Sambro Island Lighthouse. We can only wonder how the Faulkner’s might have felt when they saw that their lighthouse was substituted for another lighthouse.
However, deliberately using an incorrect image of Devil's Island Lighthouse was not the only falsehood in the full page advertisement. Remember our mention at the beginning of the story where we reported the advertisement said that lighthouse keeper Faulkner was a man without a neighbor? This also was a lie. In those early years of the 1900s, Devil's Island was a mecca for fishermen, and many of them built homes on the island. In fact the community was large enough that they even built a school for the thriving island. However, that all changed when World War II broke out. When the news was broadcast over the radio waves in 1941 of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, fear struck the islanders and they all moved to the mainland. None of them ever returned. Their abandoned homes were eventually destroyed by time and storms, with the final blow being the destructive winds of a hurricane.
Did the deceptive actions of General Electric, and possibly Collier’s, cause some type of bad karma or spiritual force of destiny to fall upon the island, the lighthouses, and even the businesses themselves, because of the sham of the 1934 advertisement?
Collier’s ran into financial problems and ceased publication in 1956.
Today, in 2009, General Electric stock has dropped to the same level it was in the 1930s when this advertisement was published.
The historic Sambro Island Lighthouse, the oldest operating lighthouse in North America, falsely pictured in the advertisement as Devil’s Island Lighthouse, has been left abandoned to the elements and a fire set by vandals recently destroyed the head keeper’s house.
The Devil’s Island Southwest Lighthouse tower was destroyed in the 1950s.
And the east light tower at Devil’s Island, although still active, has lost its lantern room and the tower is again in need of repairs and the keeper’s house, now privately owned, is in a state of shambles.
Although there was speculation in recent years about a bed and breakfast on the island, nothing has materialized. Whether or not you believe in the strange twist of fate or in something such as karma, we can only hope that good karma will overcome the bad karma and the day will come when both Sambro Island and Devil’s Island Light Stations will be restored to their former glory, as a monument to the people who served their faithfully to save lives and cargo.
However, for now both lighthouses sit shamefully neglected and forgotten by most, as silent reminders to only a few, of glorious days from the Golden Age of Lighthouses.
This story appeared in the
May 2009 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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