Six Decades of Glow

Glow sticks have been in existence for less than 60 years.

At their core, glow sticks are extremely ephemeral. They usually retain their fluorescence for about 10 hours. The plastic packaging, on the other hand, is forever.

We can see a lot of diverse meaning associated with glow sticks. People have used glow sticks to refer to the cosmos, to the culture of electronic music, adding color or adding another point of light, to the adding a level of color to action, to taking the place of the candle, to being a light representing the individual, and being part of a larger whole. It allows us to be seen, and to show ourselves in the darkness.

For many of these uses, they function as an item of rite and ritual, whether at a rave, in a church, or at a rave in a church.

How it works

The glow stick has two chemicals inside it: oxalate ester and hydrogen peroxide. Once the plastic tube is cracked, and the two chemicals mix and a reaction occurs, the tube maintains its fluorescence for up to 10 hours.

History

Inspired by Lucifer

The inspiration was from by the bioluminescence of living organisms like glow worms and fireflies. In 1957, scientists in both Japan and the United States first isolated the “living light” or “cold light” chemical called luciferin, responsible for that glow. By 1960, it was first crystallized into a chemical form, allowing scientists to perform experiments with pure luciferin. Luciferin is now used in science and medicine for non-invasive imaging of living organisms, like using bioluminescence for identifying cancerous tumors.

Why the devil??

While it may be a little confusing why the chemical is named after a Latin name of the devil, Lucifer means “light-bringer”. It was patterned after the Greek name for the planet Venus, Phosphorous, because the planet was a star that brought the light.

In the 1960s, the US military began to search for alternative temporary light sources which did not generate heat or require electricity, in other words, a cold light.

It is there somewhat ironic that the cold light of luciferin was the inspiration for the military’s search, as white phosphorous munitions, like smoke grenades, rounds, and bombs were used as both smoke screens and as tracers for marking the enemy targets. White phosphorous can burn as hot as 2500 °C, and is illegal to use against targets near civilians, because it can cause serious burns that can reignite after treatment, and death.

Invention of synthetic fluorescent

The invention of the original fluorescent material was by a scientist Dr. Edwin Chandross, who worked as a researcher at Bell Labs, in 1962.

In an interview done with Vice in 2013:

Dr. Chandross was completely unaware that the fluorescent goop he cooked up in a laboratory in 1962 had become a staple at live music events across the globe. “Is that so?” He laughed. “Maybe my granddaughter will think I’m cool now.”

Chandross did not get a patent on the formula.

Though Chandross is the founding glowfather, you won’t find his name on any US patents for the accessory. “We spoke to a Bell Labs patent attorney who declined to do anything,” he says, politely describing what amounts to a massive oversight on the part of his company’s legal counsel. “Who knew where this discovery could go?”

In fact,

one of the first patents for a glow-stick-type device was awarded to the US Navy in 1973. They quickly became an essential piece of military equipment with a vast array of uses, including emergency lights, target markers, landing zone markers and parachute markers.

The invention was important, and the American Cyanamid Company trademarked Cyalume, which became their line of chemical light products, which was spun off Cyalume Technologies.

From the Cyalume Technologies website:

The U.S. Government funded research in the chemical generation of light from 1963 through 1984. Those initial scientists, working out of Naval Air Weapons Center China Lake, were trying to recreate the bioluminescent qualities of fireflies when they discovered chemiluminescence – the chemistry that powers light sticks today.

Fifteen separate research contracts were awarded to American Cyanamid Company over this time period for the specific purpose of developing practical lighting systems that would not generate heat or require electricity to operate.

Public Introductions

Its first public, non-military foray was a Grateful Dead concert in 1971, which featured purloined glow sticks from the son of a factory worker for a subcontractor of American Cyanamid.

“Our garage that spring and summer was filled with boxes with thousands of these things,” a fan recalls on the Grateful Dead web forum dead.net. The user, Tommypea1953, was the son of a factory worker whose company was hired by American Cyanamid to create machines that assemble parts into finished glow sticks.

“There were seven of us,” the Deadhead recounts. “We had backpacks and shoulder bags filled up with light sticks—would have to be like 500 to 700 of them in total. The show started when it was still light out but we could barely hold ourselves back until dark.” A few songs into the set, they started doing their thing. “Grab a stick, break it, shake it, and throw it as far as you could. The entire end zone of the Yale Bowl stopped, even exploded with people cheering, yelling. The people around us were now grabbing handfuls of light sticks to throw and watching these green glow things fly around, tossed from area to area of the end zone.”

In 1986, the New York Times published a trend piece on swizzle sticks:

In the 1920's Cartier introduced personalized silver-plated swizzle sticks, the purpose of which was to eliminate the bubbles in champagne. The stick was apparently an item of status to the society swells of the day. Noel Coward, Gertrude Lawrence and George Gershwin were among those who toted their own silver-plated sticks around town. (Cartier sells them still at $50 - $85 if topped with a black onyx ball - plus an additional $8 for the de rigueur monogram.) 

The status swizzlers that are making waves in the drinks of the moment are rather less elegant than Cartier's, composed as they are of carnival-colored paper, transparent plastic or flexible tubes that glow in the dark. If the silver-plated originals are the ''Rhapsody in Blue'' of swizzle sticks, the current crop is right out of MTV.

''Dining out in New York has replaced going to the theater as an event,'' according to Donald F. Smith, an entrepreneur and man about town. ''The drinks are now the overture to the show itself, which is dinner,'' he says, ''so it isn't surprising that swizzle sticks took on an air of hoopla and theatricality.''

A few notes: Cartier no longer sells swizzle sticks. “Rhapsody in Blue” was 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin which combined classical music and jazz-influences. MTV was an American cable television channel which once played music videos.

Uses

There would be eight main, perhaps diametrically opposing, popular uses of glow sticks over the next four decades:

1. Music, Concerts, and Events
2. Nighttime Activities
3. Safety Uses
4. Scientific and Educational Uses
5. Outdoor Uses
6. Religious Uses
7. Artistic Uses

And of course,

8. the US Military still purchases millions of dollars of glow sticks every year.

From Raves and EDM to the Beach Boys and Barry Manilow

Adding Living, Moving Color

By the late 80s, glow sticks had become closely connected with acid house, a genre of electronic house music which came out of Chicago, and the rave scene, which featured electronic music, pacifiers, and the drug ecstasy. By 1999, in an article in the trade magazine WWD about a revered fashion institution of the time, Hot Topic, had noted

Madden said a sales associate recently went to a rave, and the next day called him to suggest stocking denim jeans with an added pocket to hold glow sticks, which ravers wave while dancing. It's now an exclusive item at Hot Topic.

Similarly an article about British designer Julien Macdonald’s New York Fashion Week show (1998), it was described with the same sort of frenetic ecstasy:

The looks came, one more fantastic than the next. What other designer could knit up a dress with wind-chime fringe, a bikini studded with metal nuts and bolts, or use neon-glow sticks as a design detail? How about a dress decorated with glass globes?

By 2000, glow sticks were so connected with the rave culture, they were banned by the DEA, calling them “drug paraphernalia”. The ACLU sued, and when in 2001 the ban was reversed, they described it as a win for “free speech”.

the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals eventually dismissed the initial ruling banning what the DEA called "drug paraphernalia," and the ban on pacifiers and glow sticks at raves and concerts was reversed. Ultimately, the judge who made the ruling said that the government could not ban inherently legal objects "used in expressive communication." Either way, he noted, there was no evidence suggesting that banning these items would actually stop people from taking ecstasy.

When EDM broke into the mainstream, there was a resurgence of the glow-sticking (dancing with glow sticks), that a Billboard article about the metal rock band Korn featuring EDM DJ Skillrex included a heartwarming quote:

"It's really cool to see glow sticks at the show, to see dance music culture infiltrating and becoming one with the metal community," [Jonathan Davis of Korn] says. "At the last show, there was one mosh pit where they were moshing, and another with kids doing glow stick tricks.”

Glow sticks became such a common feature at festivals and shows, that some clubs and festivals banned glow sticks so they would not feel like a rave. By 2009, even Ibiza didn't want glow sticks, according to Marketing Week:

Holidaymakers are being persuaded to rock instead of rave on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Famous for its nightclubs, "the white isle" is hoping to replace glow sticks and whistles with air guitars and moshing.

(I'm certain that didn't last too long.)

But certain aspects of rave culture became much more mainstream. In the decades since, there have even been raves for dogs in England and children in New York City (2014), both featuring glow sticks.

And aspects of the culture have been co-opted by weddings and bar mitzvahs, as an April 2004 article in Toronto Life about the "Bar Mitzvah baron of Toronto" clearly showed.

It's Saturday night at the hottest hot spot this side of, well, north of Eglinton. The dance floor at the Capitol is filled with glow stick-waving punters, and even the WWE-worthy bouncer by the door is shaking his rump a little.

Spoiler alert: It's a bar mitzvah.

People-representing Lights

Whereas in rave and EDM cultures, the glow stick was all about add diverse color which would add to a somewhat psychedelic color experience, in many more mainstream concerts, the glow sticks would represent the people in the crowd, being used in a metonym for the crowd goers. 

It was part of a different phenomenon, one that began with holding up lighters at music shows, turned to the safer practice of mostly monotone glow sticks, and finally turned into cell phone screens.

Lighters, matches, and candles were found at festivals as early as Live Peace (1969) with Yoko Ono and John Lennon, Woodstock (1969) with Melanie, and the Isle of Wright Festival (1970) with Leonard Cohen. By 1974, Bob Dylan and The Band toured the world and released a live album called Before the Flood with a photograph of the audience all holding lighters.

During the 2000s, “glow sticks” became frequently mentioned in conjunction with quantifying the pop celebrity, with magazines like Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter mentioning the tens of thousands of glow sticks at concerts of Avril Lavigne (2004), Kelly Clarkson (2005), and the Jonas Brothers (Billboard, 2008), being waved by tweens at Hannah Montana concert (2007), and a few years later at a Miley Cyrus show (2009).

Glow sticks were also mentioned in an article about a particularly cold Beach Boys reunion concert in Toronto, and in many articles about Barry Manilow shows. 

Nighttime Activities

Glow sticks would be used to add color to nighttime social activities including:

• group night running
• group night cycling
• nighttime golf (2005)
• nighttime kite flying
• rollerskating
• glow in the dark bowling
• something called "cosmic baseball”

Some of these would be on the person, like in running, and rollerskating, and others would be on the item, like cycling and kite-flying.

Safety Uses

For emergency preparations

Glow sticks are part of emergency packs and roadside safety kits for cars (2004), as a longer lasting alternative to flares.

For visibility on Halloween

In 2007, the then-60 year old "ambassador of Halloween" Casper the Friendly Ghost began to popularize the idea of ensuring that children’s Halloween costumes have glow sticks and bracelets so they would be visible at night, during trick or treating.

"Show your glow" themed Halloween items will promote safety during the holiday. Kids will be encouraged to wear Casper glow sticks and other lighted items so they don't get lost or hit by a car.

(However, the same year, Dunkin’ Donuts did a recall on a promotional giveaway of glow sticks due to choking and strangling hazard in children, though no one was hurt.)

Instead of fireworks on the Fourth of July

Similar to the shift from lighters to glow sticks at concerts, the shift to using color during celebrations like Mardi Gras parades and carnivals, from more sparklers and the like, probably has saved fingers as well.

In 2020, the New York Times published a parenting article about celebrating the Fourth of July with advice from a pediatrician. Its title and subtitle are quite humorous:

This July 4th, Consider Switching To Glow Sticks
Maybe don’t give a toddler a sparkler.
Unsurprisingly, the pediatricians who Melinda Wenner Moyer spoke to for her piece about Fourth of July safety think that parents should not be setting off any at-home fireworks, not even sparklers, and suggest switching to glow sticks instead. 

Science and Educational Uses

True to its inspiration, glow sticks are able to be used as a ways to teach fluorescence and bioluminescence to children.

Mimicking Fluorescence 
One creative way that elementary science educators can teach their students about animal communication is to give them glow sticks and a set of cards with descriptions of what different firefly flash signals mean. 

Researchers also use glow sticks for different types of research.

Populations of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are declining around the world—even in protected areas, like U.S. national parks. Ecologists needed a simple method to track the animals’ numbers. Now, researchers have found an effective way to keep tabs on amphibians—using that concert and party favorite: glow sticks. Green glow sticks, to be specific.“What we do know is that their eyes are particularly sensitive to green light.”

Outdoor Uses

Glow sticks are used by everyone from:

• deer hunters to track the blood trails of deer and not get lost on their way back,
• fishermen who hang glow sticks on the end of the lure to catch fish,
• scuba divers and snorkelers,
• wayfinders,
• "Moonwalking" night hikers in Chile trying to appreciate the night sky, without adding any light pollution but being able to find each other in the darkness (2012, National Geographic Traveler)

Religious Uses

In religion, we see the glow sticks used in three ways:

• As a replacement for candles
• As a new metaphor
• As a new source of color

Instead of candles

In fact, there has been a shift by many during mass and during carols to using glow sticks in place of candles, mostly for safety reasons.

I even found an article in a New Jersey business journal from 1995, about a cancelled visit from the Pope the previous years, and how a business had purchased thousands of glow sticks in anticipation for the papal mass.

Apparently people also sell glow stick menorahs, which makes sense.

For vigils

Similar to the use in place of candles and at concerts, and showing your presence, the idea of holding glow sticks while at vigils, remembering or mourning has also become prevalent. It is a silent way of adding to a greater light, without causing a fire.

As a sacrament

There has also been a movement in using glow sticks as a sacrament. The glow stick becomes functional and filled with light, only after it is broken.

“We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.” (2 Corinthians 4:7 NIV)

As color

During the Hindu holiday of Holi, in which color is celebrated, and corn starch based color packets are handed out

“covering everyone’s face with the perfumed colours mean making everyone look equal. This idea tries to oppose the age-old caste and class system in India. Nowadays, it is more about fun, but the origin of colour was a social struggle in form of celebration.”

Many have added the neon colors of the glow sticks to the festivals.

Artistic Uses

Glow sticks are ephemeral by nature, so they are more connected to performance art and photography which captures the movement and color of the glow sticks.

Dance

Besides for dance which was inspired by the rave and EDM cultures, there were instances where dancers would use glow sticks to mimic skeletal movement.

Art Festival

There was an annual Glow art festival which featured glow sticks and other fluorescent materials. 

Mr. Pally agreed that the fleeting nature of the evening offered part of the appeal. “We like that it’s just one night every few years,” he said. “If you miss it, that’s it. You’ll never see it.”

Installation

In 2020, there was an installation commissioned by the Dia Beacon by DJ and artist Carl Craig called Party/After-Party, which was of an empty club with his tracks playing. It was about the mourning the loss of community, dance, and celebration which was highlighted by the pandemic. For some installation visitors, it had an almost religious experience.

When the installation was transferred to MOCA in LA in 2022, they gave each visitor a branded glow stick as a way to extend the experience.

Finding Meaning in Light

There was another light installation featured in the exhibition, from the fluorescent artist Dan Flavin who died in 1996. As the Nationally Gallery of Art wrote about his retrospective:

Dedicating virtually his entire career to the artistic possibilities of fluorescent light, Flavin concentrated his efforts in a way rarely seen in the history of art. Restricting his materials was not a limitation, but an enabler; he exploited subtle differences and found depth, meaning, and beauty in what others overlooked.

All use of light and color is subjective. Lighting a candle can be meant to illuminate a room, or to mourn the loss of one’s light in the world.

It just takes the right perspective.