I replaced a 1956 ceramic pull-chain lighting fixture in the basement (bare bulb), but can't get it to work. (My kids pulled the chain out of the old one, which used to work fine.)I wired a new one the same way, but it won't turn on. I replaced the new fixture with another new fixture, thinking the first one was defective, but it still won't turn on.

Coming out of the ceiling into the electrical box are two white wires that are joined together and capped--they were not connected to the original fixture; and two red wires, both of which were connected to one terminal on the old fixture (there are also two yellow wires that merely extended the length of those red wires).

I tested the two red wires. One showed it was hot, the other one was not. I wired the hot red to the brass screw on the fixture and the non-hot red to the silver screw on the fixture. It just won't work. The lightbulb does work, but not in that fixture.

No one at Home Depot has been able to figure it out and I can't find the answer on the web. Can you help me?

What wire was attached to your fixture other than the two reds? Obviously your one red wire is the hot lead and the other red may lead, or at one time led, to another fixture. Did any other fixture or outlet die when you disconnected the reds from each other? Back to you.

Are you absolutely sure that the two white wires were not connected to the original fixture? This makes no sense to me. There must have been two connections to the original fixture for it to work, but you only describe one. Could there have been a third wire connected to the two whites, the other end of which would have been connected to the second terminal of the fixture? And what exactly are those yellow wires - are they stripped and ready for a connection? Perhaps when your kids broke the fixture one of the original connections was torn away?