I’m researching the quartermaster department of Fort Scott, present-day Kansas, from 1849-1851. I’ve run across a switch from tallow candles to sperm, which means spermicelli from a whale. Tallow candles were still available and preferred by nearby posts like Leavenworth.
Given the conditions of the Fort, why the preference for sperm over tallow?
There was an advantage to spermaceti candles: they melted at about 120 degrees F, as opposed to about 95 degrees F for tallow. A warm summer day would make tallow candles droop. Spermaceti candles would be the new thing, of course: the whaling industry would be hitting its peak in this period, and whale oil lamps and whale bone corsets would become popular.
You would expect tallow candles to be cheaper, however, and Ft Leavenworth might have wanted to save some money on their lighting bills.