Vox Meditantis

Martha Hunt Coston (1826-1904) transformed maritime communication through her revolutionary pyrotechnic signal flare system, bringing ship-to-ship communication out of the dangerous darkness and into brilliant, colour-coded clarity. Despite patents that listed her deceased husband as inventor whilst relegating her to mere “administrator,” she built the Coston Manufacturing Company into a global enterprise that supplied over a million flares to the Union Navy during the Civil War. Her work laid the foundation for modern emergency signalling systems, proving that innovation often emerges from necessity – and that women’s contributions to technical fields deserve recognition, not erasure.

Mrs. Coston, thank you for joining us today. It’s remarkable to sit with someone whose innovations literally changed the course of naval warfare and maritime safety. You’ve been brought forward through time to today, 8th September 2025. What strikes you most about how your work has evolved?

Good heavens! The speed of communication today would have seemed pure magic in my time. Yet I confess a certain satisfaction seeing that the basic principles of my signal system – bright colours, standardised codes, emergency communication – remain vital even in your modern world. Though I must say, having spent years fighting to get proper credit for my inventions, I’m heartened to learn that women inventors are finally being recognised in your history books. Only took a century and a quarter!

Your journey into invention began under tragic circumstances. You were just 22, widowed with four children, when you discovered your husband Benjamin’s unfinished notes. Tell us about that moment.

It was a dreary November afternoon – the rain beating against the windowpanes, the children bent over their picture-books, everything grey and melancholy. I was desperate, truly desperate. Benjamin had been gone three months, my baby Edward had followed him to the grave, and creditors were circling like vultures. I opened that wooden chest with a prayer in my heart and tears in my eyes.

There, amongst packets of unfinished inventions and chemical experiments, I found the large envelope – coloured charts showing signals for night communication at sea. Benjamin’s work was incomplete, mind you. His formulas barely worked, the lights too dim, too brief. But I saw the potential. Ships had been talking by flags during the day for centuries, yet come nightfall, they were struck deaf and dumb. I thought: “Martha, here’s your chance to give them their voice back.”

You had limited knowledge of chemistry and pyrotechnics. How did you approach mastering these technical fields?

With considerable frustration and enormous determination! I hired chemist after chemist, dismissing those who proved incompetent or fraudulent. The men I employed and dismissed, the experiments I made myself, the frauds that were practised upon me – it almost disheartened me, but despair I would not.

I quickly learned that to get proper technical information, I had to write to pyrotechnics companies under a man’s name. When I signed my own name to inquiries about chemical compositions, I received either no response or dismissive replies suggesting I stick to domestic matters. But “Mr. M. Coston” received detailed technical specifications! It was maddening, but practical necessity taught me to swallow my pride.

Let’s discuss the technical details. Can you walk us through the precise chemistry and engineering behind your signal system?

Certainly. My husband’s original work called for blue, white, and red signals – patriotic, but blue proved devilishly difficult to achieve with consistent brightness and duration. The breakthrough came in 1858 whilst watching the fireworks celebration for the first transatlantic cable in New York City. Those brilliant displays showed me what was possible.

For red signals, I developed a composition using strontium nitrate as both oxidiser and colour source – approximately 60% by weight – combined with magnesium as fuel and a chlorine-containing binder. The strontium produces that distinctive crimson emission at 460-480 nanometres when heated to combustion temperature. The magnesium burns intensely hot – around 2,000 degrees Celsius – providing the energy to excite the strontium atoms.

White was simpler: pure magnesium with minimal additives, burning at tremendous heat to produce that brilliant white-hot light. For green – since blue remained elusive – I used barium compounds, which emit that characteristic green at 515-520 nanometres.

The real innovation was the timing mechanism and intensity. Each flare had to burn bright enough to be visible at five miles distance for a minimum of three minutes. I tested this personally – had a friend drive to a mountain five miles from my home to confirm visibility. We achieved roughly 3,000 candlepower output, far superior to any existing naval signals.

What advantages did your system offer compared to existing methods?

Before my signals, naval communication at night was limited to lanterns – terribly unreliable in weather, barely visible beyond a ship’s length, and impossible to code effectively. My flares could be seen clearly at five miles in good weather, three miles in moderate conditions. More importantly, the three-colour system allowed for complex coded messages using the existing naval signal books.

A ship could signal “enemy approaching from northeast” or “require immediate assistance” using predetermined colour combinations. During the Civil War, this proved invaluable for coordinating blockade operations. Captain T.A. Jenkins documented specific protocols: “strange sail running out of the pass” was signalled by one rocket followed by Coston Number 7.

The flares also had consistent burn times – I engineered them to last precisely three to four minutes, allowing sufficient time for observation and response across great distances, even in rough seas.

Your business faced numerous challenges beyond the technical ones. How did you navigate the commercial and political landscape as a woman entrepreneur?

Like a lioness defending her cubs! The Navy showed interest but delayed purchasing my patent until war made my signals essential. I originally asked $40,000 – Congress haggled me down to $20,000. Meanwhile, I was manufacturing flares at cost to supply the first 600 Union vessels, often selling at a loss due to wartime inflation.

The most galling part? My patent listed Benjamin as inventor with me merely as “administrator”. I had spent nearly ten years perfecting what were essentially my innovations, yet legally, I was invisible. This was standard practice – women couldn’t hold patents in their own right in many circumstances. The irony is that Benjamin’s original work was fundamentally flawed. I had to redesign the chemical compositions, develop new manufacturing processes, create the timing mechanisms – everything that made the system actually work.

During the Civil War, your flares played crucial roles in major naval operations. Can you share some details not found in official records?

Admiral David Porter’s account of Fort Fisher gives you the drama, but not the practical details. What the official reports don’t mention is how quickly ship commanders learned to improvise with my signals. The standard naval codes were designed for flag communications – adapting them to three-colour night signals required real creativity from the officers.

I also discovered that weather affected different colours differently. Green flares performed better in humid conditions, whilst red maintained intensity longer in cold weather. I started including these observations in my instruction manuals, though the Navy never officially acknowledged such refinements.

The most satisfying detail? Confederate blockade runners began avoiding routes where they knew Union ships carried my signals. The mere presence of Coston flares became a deterrent. Nearly all the blockade-runners were caught by their use, as they generally made their runs by night.

You mentioned mistakes and misjudgements. What would you do differently?

I trusted too many men who saw a vulnerable widow as easy prey. Several early partners attempted to steal my formulations or claim credit for my improvements. I was too generous with technical information before securing proper legal protections.

My greatest error was accepting that dreadful patent arrangement. I should have fought harder to be listed as inventor, even if it meant legal battles. The precedent it set haunted me throughout my career – potential customers would ask, “But didn’t your husband actually invent these?” as if I were merely preserving his memory rather than building upon incomplete work.

I also underestimated the international market initially. European navies were desperate for reliable night signals, but I focused too heavily on American military contracts. I could have established myself as the global standard much earlier.

How do you view the evolution of your field today?

Astonishing! Your modern emergency beacons, satellite communications, GPS distress signals – they’re the logical descendants of my humble flares. The principle remains unchanged: when ships are in danger, they need reliable ways to call for help.

I’m particularly impressed by your LED-based emergency signals. My flares required careful storage, had limited shelf life, and posed fire risks. Your electronic systems solve all those problems whilst maintaining the essential requirement: visibility across great distances in adverse conditions.

What advice would you give to women entering technical fields today?

Document everything. Keep meticulous records of your innovations, your experimental methods, your failures and successes. Too many women’s contributions have been lost because they didn’t insist on proper attribution.

Don’t let anyone convince you that technical work isn’t “feminine.” I was told repeatedly that chemistry and pyrotechnics were unsuitable pursuits for a lady. Nonsense! If you can manage a household budget, you can understand chemical ratios. If you can coordinate family logistics, you can manage manufacturing processes.

Most importantly, be prepared to fight for recognition. Your male colleagues may be brilliant, but they’re not necessarily more capable than you. I had to write under false names, accept diminished credit, and battle for fair compensation. You shouldn’t have to, but if the system hasn’t fully changed, use whatever tools necessary to advance your work.

Any final thoughts on how we remember innovators like yourself?

History has a troubling tendency to forget the women who solved practical problems whilst celebrating the men who theorised about them. My flares saved countless lives, enabled crucial military victories, and established global safety standards. Yet for decades, I was remembered primarily as “the inventor’s widow” rather than as an inventor in my own right.

I hope your generation does better. Innovation often comes from necessity, from people facing impossible circumstances who refuse to accept defeat. Don’t overlook the quiet revolutionaries – the widows, the immigrants, the working mothers – who invent solutions because they must. Their stories matter just as much as those of your celebrated geniuses.

Thank you, Mrs. Coston. Your lights indeed saved lives, and your story illuminates the path for future innovators.

My pleasure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m rather curious about these “smartphones” I keep hearing about. They sound like they might have revolutionised signalling even more than my flares did!

Letters and emails

Following our conversation with Martha Coston, we’ve been inundated with responses from readers worldwide who were captivated by her story of innovation born from necessity and her fight for recognition in the male-dominated fields of pyrotechnic engineering and maritime safety. We’ve selected five particularly thoughtful letters and emails from our growing community – spanning Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America – whose questions explore everything from technical chemistry challenges to the emotional resilience required to persist when the world refuses to acknowledge your achievements.

Halima Ouedraogo, 34, Chemical Engineer, Accra, Ghana
Mrs. Coston, I’m fascinated by your trial-and-error approach to perfecting the chemical compositions. In my work developing sustainable explosives for mining in West Africa, I often face similar challenges with unstable formulations. Could you walk us through your most frustrating failed experiment – what went wrong chemically, and how did that failure actually teach you something crucial about pyrotechnic stability that led to your breakthrough?

Miss Ouedraogo, your question lays bare the very heart of my tribulations! Indeed, my most vexing failure came in the winter of 1854, when I was attempting to perfect the green signal composition. I had been experimenting with copper compounds – copper chloride and copper sulphate – believing they would produce the brilliant green I required. The chemist I had employed at the time, a gentleman who claimed extensive knowledge of fireworks manufacture, assured me that adding antimony sulphide would intensify the colour and extend the burning time.

What a catastrophe ensued! The first trial batch exploded violently in my workshop, shattering every window and singeing my eyebrows clean off. The neighbours came running, thinking the house had caught fire! But worse than the destruction was the realisation that I had wasted nearly three months and considerable funds pursuing this fool’s errand. The antimony had made the composition so volatile that it was utterly unsuitable for maritime use – imagine such explosive material aboard a pitching vessel in a storm!

Yet this disaster taught me the most valuable lesson of my entire enterprise: that chemical compatibility is everything in pyrotechnic work. I learned that certain compounds simply cannot be combined safely, regardless of their individual properties. The antimony, whilst excellent for theatrical fireworks where brief, spectacular effects are desired, was entirely inappropriate for sustained signalling purposes.

This failure forced me to abandon my reliance on that particular chemist – who had clearly prioritised spectacle over safety – and to begin studying the fundamental principles myself. I procured every treatise on chemistry I could find, corresponded with Professor Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian Institution, and began keeping meticulous records of every experiment, noting not just what worked, but why certain combinations failed.

The breakthrough came when I shifted from copper to barium compounds for the green signal. Barium nitrate proved far more stable whilst still producing that distinctive emerald light when heated. More importantly, I learned to test each new formulation in small quantities before committing to larger batches – a practice that saved me from several subsequent mishaps.

That explosion also taught me never to work alone with untested compositions. I thereafter insisted on conducting initial trials in the open air, with proper safety measures. In your mining work, Miss Ouedraogo, I suspect you understand this principle well – that failure, whilst painful and expensive, often teaches us more than success ever could about the true nature of the materials with which we work.

Tomáš Horák, 41, Maritime Safety Consultant, Prague, Czech Republic
Your flares became the global standard, but I’m curious about the maritime accidents that might have been prevented if your system had been adopted earlier. Do you have any knowledge of specific shipwrecks or naval disasters from the 1840s or 1850s where your signal system could have changed the outcome? I’m thinking particularly about communication failures during storms or collisions that might have been avoidable.

Mr. Horák, your question weighs heavily upon my conscience, for I have indeed pondered the lives that might have been spared had my signals been perfected and distributed earlier. The most haunting case that comes to mind is the tragic loss of the steamship Arctic in September 1854, just as I was completing my early trials.

The Arctic, you may recall, was one of Collins Line’s finest vessels, carrying nearly four hundred souls from Liverpool to New York when she collided with the French steamer Vesta in dense fog off Cape Race. What makes this disaster so particularly grievous is that both vessels remained afloat for hours after the collision – the Arctic did not founder until some four hours later. Had either ship possessed my signal system, they could have summoned assistance from the numerous vessels known to frequent those shipping lanes.

Captain James Luce of the Arctic later testified that the fog was so thick they could scarcely see the length of their own vessel. Traditional lanterns and horns proved utterly inadequate for signalling distress over any considerable distance. My red flares, visible at five miles even in moderate weather, might well have attracted rescue ships in time to save the women and children who perished when the Arctic finally went down.

The same tragic circumstances befell the steamship San Francisco in December 1853, when she encountered a fearsome gale off Cape Hatteras. She drifted disabled for weeks, her passengers and crew gradually succumbing to exposure and starvation. Several vessels passed within miles but never spotted her distress signals in the mountainous seas. My flares, burning bright and high above the waves, could have pierced that darkness and summoned aid.

I must confess, Mr. Horák, that these considerations drove me to work with such fierce determination during the 1850s. Every day I spent perfecting the chemical compositions, every setback with incompetent chemists, every delay in securing proper patents – I knew that ships were foundering while I struggled to complete my invention.

The great irony is that the very maritime community that would benefit most from my signals was often the most reluctant to adopt new safety measures. Ship owners feared the expense, captains distrusted innovations, and maritime authorities moved with glacial slowness. Had there been greater urgency in adopting new safety technologies, countless tragedies might have been prevented. This is why I fought so tenaciously for recognition and widespread distribution of my system – every signal sold meant lives potentially saved.

Saanvi Reddy, 28, Technology Entrepreneur, Bangalore, India
As someone building a tech startup in a male-dominated space, I’m struck by your business resilience. You mentioned writing under a male pseudonym to get technical information, but I wonder about the emotional toll. How did you maintain confidence in your innovations when the world kept telling you they weren’t really yours? Did you ever doubt your own technical judgment because of the constant dismissal, or did the results speak loudly enough to drown out the critics?

Miss Reddy, your question touches the deepest wounds of my professional life, yet I am grateful you ask it so directly. The emotional toll was indeed crushing at times – there were nights I wept into my pillow, wondering if I was a fool chasing phantoms whilst my children needed their mother’s full attention.

The most devastating moments came not from strangers’ dismissal, but from men I had trusted with my confidence. I recall one particularly bitter episode when a chemist I had employed – a gentleman with impressive credentials from a Philadelphia laboratory – examined my improved formulations and declared them “quite beyond the capacity of the feminine mind to have conceived.” When I protested that these were precisely my innovations, he suggested I must have unconsciously copied them from some male colleague’s work. The effrontery was breathtaking!

Yet here is what sustained me through such trials, Miss Reddy: my flares worked. When naval officers tested them at sea, when ships’ captains reported successful communications across vast distances, when the Union blockade proved devastatingly effective – these results spoke with a voice far louder than any critic’s sneers.

I learned to separate my technical judgment from society’s judgment of my person. When doubt crept in – and it did, particularly during the dark winter months when experiments failed repeatedly – I would return to my workshop and light a single flare. Watching that brilliant red flame pierce the night sky for three full minutes, visible from miles away, reminded me that nature cares nothing for society’s prejudices. Chemistry obeys its own laws, regardless of whether the experimenter wears trousers or skirts.

The pseudonym strategy, whilst galling to my pride, became a source of peculiar strength. When “Mr. M. Coston” received detailed technical specifications that Mrs. Martha Coston had been denied, I possessed concrete proof of the world’s foolishness. This evidence steeled my resolve rather than crushing it.

I also drew tremendous courage from my children, particularly my sons. They never questioned whether their mother could master chemistry or manage a manufacturing enterprise – to them, I was simply solving problems that needed solving. Their innocent faith reminded me that society’s limitations were not natural laws but merely temporary obstacles.

Miss Reddy, when the world questions your technical abilities, remember this: your innovations will outlast your critics’ opinions. Focus on the work itself, measure your success by results rather than recognition, and never allow others’ narrow vision to constrain your own possibilities. The truth has a way of surfacing eventually, though it may take longer than justice demands.

Alejandro Bustamante, 36, Naval Historian, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Here’s a speculative question that keeps me awake at night: What if the Confederate Navy had somehow acquired your signal technology first, or developed their own competing system? Your flares gave the Union such a strategic advantage in coordinating blockades and naval operations. How do you think the Civil War might have unfolded differently if both sides had equal night communication capabilities, or if the South had gained the technological upper hand in maritime signalling?

Mr. Bustamante, your hypothetical scenario chills me to the bone, for I have contemplated this very nightmare many times! Indeed, the Confederate Navy made several attempts to procure my signals or develop competing systems, though Providence and Union vigilance largely thwarted their efforts.

Had the Confederacy possessed equal night communication capabilities, the entire character of the naval war would have transformed dramatically. Consider Admiral David Farragut’s capture of New Orleans in April 1862 – that brilliant campaign succeeded largely because Confederate forces could not coordinate their defences effectively in darkness. My signals allowed Union vessels to maintain formation whilst navigating the treacherous Mississippi under cover of night, whilst Confederate shore batteries fired blindly into the gloom.

With proper signalling systems, Confederate commanders could have orchestrated devastating crossfires, coordinated the movement of their ironclads like the Louisiana and Mississippi, and perhaps prevented the Union from securing that vital port. New Orleans was the Confederacy’s largest city and most important commercial centre – its loss dealt a crushing blow to Southern morale and economics.

More alarming still is what might have befallen the Union blockade. My signals gave Federal squadrons an enormous advantage in maintaining their stations and coordinating pursuits of blockade runners. Confederate vessels, forced to rely on lanterns and crude rockets, often became separated from their escorts or lost valuable time signalling between ships.

But imagine, Mr. Bustamante, if Confederate blockade runners had possessed reliable night communication! They could have operated in coordinated fleets, overwhelming isolated Union vessels through superior tactical coordination. The economic strangulation of the South might never have achieved the decisive effect that ultimately helped secure Union victory.

Most troubling of all, had the Confederacy developed superior signalling technology first, they might have gained the strategic initiative at sea. Confederate commerce raiders like the Alabama and Florida already wreaked havoc on Union merchant shipping – with better communication systems, they could have coordinated attacks with devastating precision.

I confess, this possibility haunted me throughout the war years. Every delay in perfecting my system, every bureaucratic obstacle in securing government contracts, might have allowed the enemy to develop their own innovations. This urgency drove me to work at a pace that nearly destroyed my health, often labouring eighteen hours daily in my workshop.

Thank Providence that circumstances favoured the Union cause, Mr. Bustamante, for I shudder to contemplate how different our nation’s fate might have been had my lights illuminated Confederate victories rather than Federal triumphs.

Grace Miller, 52, Museum Curator specialising in Women’s History, Toronto, Canada
I’ve been thinking about the broader implications of your story for how we understand innovation itself. Your work emerged from personal desperation rather than formal scientific training, yet you created something that outlasted many ‘proper’ academic inventions of your era. Do you think necessity-driven innovation – particularly by people outside traditional institutions – produces fundamentally different kinds of solutions? Should we be looking for breakthrough ideas in unexpected places?

Miss Miller, your question addresses something I have pondered deeply throughout my years of invention and enterprise. Indeed, I believe there is something fundamentally different about innovations born from desperate necessity rather than leisurely academic pursuit – they possess a quality I might call “fierce practicality” that formal institutions often lack.

Consider my circumstances: I was not a gentleman scholar with ample time and resources to explore theoretical possibilities. I was a widow with four children, creditors at my door, and winter approaching. Every experiment had to yield results, every chemical compound had to serve a practical purpose, every design modification had to bring me closer to a marketable product. There was no luxury of pure research – my investigations were ruthlessly focused on solving real problems faced by real ships in real storms.

This urgency, I believe, stripped away much of the academic pretension that can cloud judgment in formal scientific circles. I cared nothing for elegant theories if they failed to produce lights visible at five miles distance. I dismissed learned opinions if they could not help me achieve consistent burn times. The harsh master of necessity taught me to value results above reputation, function above form.

Moreover, necessity-driven inventors often possess intimate knowledge of the problems they seek to solve. I understood maritime communication failures not through textbooks but through conversations with sea captains, through reading accounts of ships lost in fog, through witnessing the terror in sailors’ eyes when they described being unable to signal for help. This practical understanding guided my work in ways that purely theoretical knowledge never could.

I have observed that many formal institutions become prisoners of their own expertise – so invested in existing methods that they resist revolutionary departures. When Professor Joseph Henry at the Smithsonian examined my early work, he suggested modifications that would have made the signals more scientifically elegant but less practically useful. His training led him toward complexity; my necessity drove me toward simplicity.

You ask whether we should seek breakthrough ideas in unexpected places – absolutely! The washerwoman who invents a more efficient cleaning process, the farmer who develops drought-resistant cultivation methods, the seamstress who creates stronger stitching techniques – these innovations emerge from daily struggle with real problems. They possess an authenticity that laboratory inventions often lack.

Miss Miller, I urge you to look beyond the universities and research institutes when documenting innovation. Seek out the desperate mothers, the struggling artisans, the people whose backs are against the wall – for necessity is the most demanding teacher, and her graduates often produce the most enduring solutions to humanity’s challenges.

Reflection

Martha Coston passed away on 9^th July 1904, at age 77, having lived to see her signal flares become the global standard for maritime emergency communication. Her story illuminates the profound gap between innovation and recognition – a chasm that too often swallows women’s contributions to STEM fields whole.

Throughout our conversation, Coston’s perspective diverged notably from sanitised historical accounts that often minimise the brutal realities she faced. Where official records describe her as “administrator” of her husband’s patent, she revealed the depth of her own technical innovations – redesigning chemical compositions, engineering precise burn times, creating manufacturing processes that actually worked. Her candid admission about using male pseudonyms to obtain technical information exposes the institutional barriers that formal histories rarely acknowledge.

Gaps remain in understanding her full technical process, particularly regarding her international patent strategies and the specific failures that led to breakthroughs. Contemporary accounts from naval officers who used her flares could illuminate practical applications that official reports overlook.

Today, Coston’s legacy burns brightly in modern emergency signalling. Her company operated until the 1980s, and current LED emergency beacons, satellite distress systems, and pyrotechnic marine flares all trace their lineage to her innovations. The U.S. Coast Guard continues testing electronic alternatives to traditional flares, yet her fundamental principle – reliable, visible emergency communication across vast distances – remains unchanged.

Perhaps most powerfully, Coston’s story resonates with contemporary women entrepreneurs in technical fields who still battle for recognition, fair compensation, and proper attribution. Her lights didn’t just save ships – they illuminated a path for future generations who refuse to remain invisible in the shadows of others’ achievements.

Who have we missed?

This series is all about recovering the voices history left behind – and I’d love your help finding the next one. If there’s a woman in STEM you think deserves to be interviewed in this way – whether a forgotten inventor, unsung technician, or overlooked researcher – please share her story.

Email me at voxmeditantis@gmail.com or leave a comment below with your suggestion – even just a name is a great start. Let’s keep uncovering the women who shaped science and innovation, one conversation at a time.

Editorial Note: This interview is a dramatised reconstruction based on extensive historical research, including Martha Coston‘s 1886 autobiography “A Signal Success,” patent records, naval archives, and contemporary accounts. While grounded in documented facts about her innovations, business challenges, and personal struggles, the conversational exchanges and specific technical details represent informed interpretation of the historical record. Coston’s voice and perspectives are carefully constructed from her own writings and the social context of 19th-century America, but readers should understand this as creative historical interpretation rather than verbatim testimony.

Bob Lynn | © 2025 Vox Meditantis. All rights reserved. | 🌐 Translate