The Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence was founded in 1999 to better share the wonders of fluorescence with the public and to serve as an educational facility for teachers. A nonprofit institution, the museum is on the same grounds as the Sterling Hill Mining Museum and is managed by the same foundation.

Through exhibits, lectures, and workshops the Warren Museum seeks to reveal both the beauty and utility of fluorescence. More than 550 objects are currently on display. Thirteen cases of brightly glowing mineral specimens illustrate the diverse causes of fluorescence in the natural world, and an exhibit of such everyday items as drinking glasses, golf balls, plastic toys, and postage stamps reveals that fluorescence is a property shared by a wide range of common materials. Historic ultraviolet lamps are exhibited in a separate room.

The Warren Museum currently occupies three rooms of the old (1916) ore mill at Sterling Hill, and is expanding into a fourth room. New exhibits on bioluminescence, triboluminescence, phosphorescent minerals, fluorescent art, fluorescent crystals, and the many commercial and industrial uses of fluorescence and ultraviolet light are either in planning or under construction. The museum also houses a substantial reference collection of fluorescent minerals and is developing a library and a photograph archive.

Who was Thomas S. Warren?

	Thomas S. Warren

Thomas Spencer Warren was born in 1903 and died in November 2001, at age 98. Until a few months before his death he was still actively promoting the fluorescent mineral hobby. 

Most collectors of fluorescent minerals know him as the founder of Ultra-Violet Products, Inc. (now UVP, Inc.), but few are aware of his powerful influence on our hobby, or the depth of his lifelong commitment. To begin with, Tom originated the most important tool we have: the mass-produced, handheld, portable ultraviolet lamp. He developed the M-12 battery-powered "Mineralight" lamp in the late 1930s for prospectors hunting scheelite; many of these were traded to Franklin and Sterling Hill miners and found their way into the mines in lunchboxes. 

Tom's initial interest may have been economic—luckily the uranium boom kept UVP going after 1945—but like many collectors he also became obsessed with the beauty of minerals "under the lamp," and never lost an opportunity to promote them. He displayed minerals along with his UV lamps at hundreds of mining and mineral trade shows, and gave innumerable lectures and demonstrations; he also sponsored the first public exhibit of fluorescent minerals (at Knott's Berry Farm around 1940). By the 1950s UVP made not only portable and line-operated handlamps, but also powerful display lamps such as the S-68, still used in museums worldwide. The company also had the largest stock of fluorescent minerals ever assembled. Even after Tom stepped down as CEO of UVP in 1973, he continued to run the mineral business until 1984, and the last of its stock was not dispersed until around 1992.

During his fifty-plus years of involvement with fluorescent minerals, Tom promoted them in every way he could. In addition to exhibiting all over the country, including the early Franklin, New Jersey shows, he sponsored the early "bibles" for collectors: Sterling Gleason's Ultraviolet Guide to Minerals and Bob Jones' Nature's Hidden Rainbows. More recently (1994) he personally published Ultraviolet Light and Fluorescent Minerals, with one of the four sections written by him. When the Fluorescent Mineral Society was founded by Don Newsome in 1971, Tom saw that early FMS activities were sponsored by UVP, and its print shop produced the early FMS journals and newsletters. In 1974 the FMS organized the first all-fluorescent-mineral show, and this too was held at Tom's factory in San Gabriel, California. UVP under Tom Warren even helped with Hoya's development of the long-life short-wave filter, the most significant development in UV lamp technology in decades.

All this ignores the rest of his life. Tom Warren also raised three children, shepherded UVP into dozens of other scientific and commercial markets, and in short has led a remarkably meaningful and active existence. However, for us he is truly the godfather of every collector of fluorescent minerals. Far more than anyone else's, his efforts, enthusiasm, and accomplishments determined the shape and scope of our hobby. Honoring him with a Museum of Fluorescence at Sterling Hill seems wholly appropriate.

History of the Warren Museum

The idea of creating a museum of fluorescence at Sterling Hill grew from an earlier concept to mount a permanent display of fluorescent minerals in one of the basement rooms of the Sterling Mill, an imposing, multistory structure constructed in 1916. 

The mill was used continuously by the New Jersey Zinc Company until 1958, and by 1962 all but its lowermost level, a series of concrete-walled rooms that served as the foundation for the edifice above, was demolished. The foundation subsequently was buried under a thick layer of earth, where it remained until it was exhumed by the Sterling Hill Mining Museum in 1990. Excavation and rehabilitation of the mill foundation rooms added more than 4,600 square feet of potential exhibit and classroom space to the museum holdings. This was to be the Geotech Center, the educational arm of the Sterling Hill Mining Museum Foundation.

By 1996 the initial intent of developing a modest display of fluorescent minerals in the Geotech Center had blossomed into plans for a museum of fluorescence, to be used not only as a public attraction but also as a resource for educators in science. Three rooms of the Geotech Center were reserved for that purpose, and on October 16, 1999, with 14 temporary exhibits in place, the Thomas S. Warren Museum of Fluorescence was dedicated. Work on constructing the permanent displays began shortly thereafter. The museum formally opened to the public in late September, 2000, with more than 550 objects on display in 16 built-in cases, and is now expanding into a fourth room.

Future Directions and Goals

Fluorescent minerals continue to be a central theme of the Warren Museum, as befits the lifelong interest of the man it honors. Tom Warren, however, was also a businessman who went far beyond the mineral hobby to explore the many technical and commercial uses of fluorescence and ultraviolet light—indeed, he created some of them. The scope of the Warren Museum thus is a broad one, and in future years the museum staff will be mounting displays on a wide variety of topics such as the use of ultraviolet light in postal stamp tagging, criminal forensics, prototype forming, leak detection, advertising, wastewater treatment, food inspection, art restoration, astronomical observation, etc. More than four dozen additional themes are under consideration for displays as the Museum acquires the necessary items and materials for its public exhibits and educational programs.