Tragedy at the Humboldt House
A young immigrant worker loses her life in a horrific lamp explosion, highlighting the everyday dangers of domestic life in 1890s Tacoma.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Carrie Sobstad, a 20-year-old Norwegian woman, died after a kerosene lamp exploded in her room at the Humboldt House. She had been reading in bed when she likely tipped the lamp while drowsy. The proprietor, Ernest Martens, rushed through three doors to save his children who were sleeping nearby, placing them on the roof of a shed before helping the servant girl. Sobstad suffered severe burns to her face, head, breast, and arms, and died in great agony six hours later. She had been working for the family for nearly a year.
“He found the girl enveloped in flames... extinguishing the flames which had burned her face, head, breast and arms especially to a crisp.”
Accidents involving kerosene lamps were a leading cause of home fires and injuries in late 19th-century urban centers, serving as a visceral reminder of the pre-electric era's high domestic risk.
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