Flashlight and battery : chicken and egg?

Following up on the previous post on flashlights, here’s an interesting twist. According to the Electrochemistry Encyclopedia,

A two pound (~one kg) Leclanche battery is a little large and heavy to carry around in one’s pocket. Recognizing this, Conrad Hubert at the American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company in 1898 and 1899 pioneered the use of the flashlight which was just that. It provided a relatively short flash of light for a time and then one waited for the batteries to recover. Two sizes of batteries were invented to power this type of device, “C” cells and “D” cells, as well as small light bulbs for the devices. It is said that the “C” cell is the diameter of a broom handle and the “D” cell is the diameter of a shovel handle. When the batteries and flashlights became popular, many more uses were found for the batteries and the industry grew rapidly with many companies and devices.

Was the pocket-sized battery invented for the flashlight, or was the flashlight invented based on the pocket-sized battery? It’s off the button topic, but it’s still a fun question.

Actually, this makes sense. If you invent the cell phone, you probably don’t start from, “Hey, here’s a new odd-shaped battery, what can I do with it?” You start with your invention, handheld light, and then figure out how to power it.

The American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company was the original Flickr. They invented one thing (flashlight), created a subtechnology to support it (small battery) and then found that the subtechnology was the real brilliance. They quickly changed their name to Ever Ready and eventually Eveready in 1906.

I particularly like the broom handle and shovel handle connections to the C and D battery. Those references feel correct.