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Herb Ebendorf
Herb Ebendorf Historian, The Coleman Company, Inc. A longtime resident of Wichita, Herb Ebendorf graduated (BA) Washburn University in 1932 and came to Wichita in 1934 to take a position with Farm Credit Administration. He joined Boeing Public Relations Department as Editor of Employee Publications. When the Second World War ended he accepted the position of Publications Manager for the Coleman Co. He served in various capacities as publicity writer, editor of employee and dealer publications, advertising, sales promotion and public relations. Herb is active in American Red Cross, United Way, National Conference of Christians and Jews, Wichita Chamber of Commerce and Industrial Editors Association. His special interests are early Wichita history, its pioneers, entrepreneurs and civic leaders. You may contact Herb at the Coleman Factory Outlet and Museum, 235 N. St. Francis Wichita, KS 67202 (316) 261-334
Outdoors
2003-03-01 11:49:00
The lantern, mantle & gasoline
:  In reading about several of Wichita’s industrial ‘pioneers’, I don’t find that much written about W. C. Coleman, and all of his work in the area of illumination and lanterns.  Can you provide a little history about him, his products, and his company?
ANSWER:  (sixth in series, see Oct. '02, Nov. ‘02, Dec. ‘02, Jan. ‘03 and Feb. ‘03 issues) It is not known how many companies were engaged in manufacturing gasoline lamps and lanterns during the 1900-1925 period. One manufacturer stated that more than 50 claimed to be making gasoline lighting devices but that "to our positive knowledge not more than one-fifth of these concerns do any more actual merchandising than is involved in packaging goods or putting goods into a shipping case or putting connections on wire.” 1Whatever the total may have been, progress was being made. One of the earlier advances was the inverted mantle. One source 2 states that it was not until 1900-1901 that the inverted mantle became a possibility. Development was credited to Bernt, Cravenka and Kent whose work on high pressure burners was reported to have covered a span of several years.The inverted mantle seems to have come into general use between 1905 and 1910, a critical period in the development of hydrocarbon lamps and lighting systems. The mantle was widely accepted because it was relatively simple to manufacture and apply. Whereas it could be shipped flat in an ordinary box or envelope and tied to the lamp burner with an asbestos string, the standing mantle had to be shaped, hardened, burnt off and encased in a protective carton before leaving the factory.Lamp manufacturers were learning early that fuel tanks and lamp fonts had to be made strong enough to withstand pressures of as much as 100 pounds per square inch. Among the first to learn the lesson was Coleman. Being in the lamp rental business he found that much of his time was occupied in repairing and replacing leaky lamps so that he could collect his fee. He succeeded in persuading the Edward Miller Co. to correct the deficiency, but only after he had acquired the patent rights to the Efficient lamp and renamed it the Coleman Arc Lamp. In 1905 he began making his own lamps.Although the hollow wire and tube systems helped popularize the idea that there was more to twentieth century lighting than Edison's carbon filament bulbs and coal oil lamps, there remained a critical need for a fully portable table lamp which would produce up to 300 candlepower yet would be safe to use even if it were dropped on the floor or accidentally upset.While in Chicago in 1907, Coleman saw a table lamp that worked on gas vapor fed to the burner by means of a rubber tube. The lamp was portable to the radius of the tube.Coleman returned to his little factory in Kansas and began work on what two years later would be introduced as the Coleman Model R Reading Lamp.3 A patent was granted the inventor in 1910.Whether Coleman’s Model R was the first of the portable gasoline table lamps may be academic.  In any event it seems to have been the model for numerous other lamps which would insure the success of the gasoline lights and eventually would lead to the highly utilitarian outdoor lantern.Next time we finish this series with the secret to the success of the Coleman Company in the early 1900’s... the building of a better generator.
 
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