Why this?

[AHI in AR]

I found this in a 1925 vintage home Friday. It had a recessed Edison base socket in it with the adapter in it which you see in the photo. Additionally, there also appears to have been a hinged cover over it originally. Anyone know why this would be used at baseboard level in a hallway? Some early type of nightlight?

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[Marc]

Antebellum style turn-of-the-century homes in my area often had the receptacles installed in the baseboard. This baseboard was about a foot high and so had plenty of room.

Marc

[AHI in AR]

It's not the location in the baseboard that has me stumped; I'm used to that in older homes. It's the fact that it has an Edison base socket in it and had some sort of hinged cover over it. I'm pretty sure the adapter converting it to a receptacle was done later. The other original receptacles were all mounted in the baseboard, but they were conventional ungrounded duplex receptacles.

[Bill Kibbel]

Receptacles used to be "sockets" before bladed plugs were the standard (and way before NEMA was created). Appliance "plugs" were threaded like light bulbs. That's why you'll hear really old folks saying "go plug it in the socket".

That's a toaster, btw.

[Erby]

Got some old stuff. Ask Bill Kibbel. He'll have the answer and, most likely, a dang picture to go with it!

[Douglas Hansen]

Could the wires to that receptacle also be in a channel inside the baseboard?

[Jim Baird]

Retrofit wiring behind those high old baseboards is common around here. Now and then you will see a house that has a generator room kind of sunken like a half-basement.

[AHI in AR]

Could the wires to that receptacle also be in a channel inside the baseboard?

I didn't remove it to look. The home was definitely built in 1925 and had a lot of the K&T wiring intact. It wasn't retrofitted. But this was the only receptacle like this in a 3300 S.F. home.

As for Kibbel, I think there's a Dorian Gray sort of thing going on. He knows all this stuff because he's actually lived it.