 | 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
2003-04-01 11:23:00
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: (seventh in series, see Oct. '02, Nov. ‘02, Dec. ‘02, Jan. ‘03, Feb. ‘03 and Mar ‘03 issues) 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.Prior to 1916, most gasoline and kerosene mantle lamps required preheating in order to begin the vaporizing process. The most common preheating device was the alcohol torch. Often the torch was little more than a bit of cloth held by a twist of wire. After being dipped in a container of methyl alcohol, the torch was ignited and applied to the generator.The building of a better generator became almost an obsession with inventors. The solution to the problem turned out to be quite simple. The generator was lengthened by adding a loop or pigtail to the generator's brass tubing. This added about 3 inches of heating surface. When two lighted matches were applied to the sides of the loop the vaporizing process was underway. The alcohol torch soon disappeared.Some 10 years later, the generator would be improved further, but by then the Coleman Quick-Lite lamps and lanterns had gained a leadership position in gasoline vapor lighting.The 1920s may well have been the most productive period in the gas-from-gasoline era. The portable table lamp became a familiar sight in millions of homes beyond the reach of electric lines. The lantern, which was by now virtually stormproof, was favored by many farmers and others who worked outdoors.The burning apparatus common to the lamp and lantern also was being employed in self-heating irons, domestic water heaters, camp and utility stoves, full-size kitchen ranges, hot plates and blow torches.The product parade continued into the war years. The allied forces ordered over one million gasoline lanterns and another one million special military burners from one company alone. And when the war ended, far from being obsolete, the lantern and its companion, the folding camp stove, found favor with new generations of campers and picnickers.Any attempt to assess the role of pressurized gasoline and kerosene lamps is without end. Their origin can be traced to the vapor or "spirit" lamps of the early part of the 19th century. The gas machines of the '80s and '90s were a forward step particularly after they incorporated the Welsbach mantle. Then came the hollow wire and tube systems and almost concurrently the development in the early 1900s of self-contained hanging lamps, wall lamps and table lamps. Gasoline lanterns gained favored status during the first World War by lengthening the hours farmers could work in the field.During the same period missionaries, explorers, archeologists and big game hunters would carry gas lanterns with them thus introducing millions to the marvel of their bright light.Commercial application of gas lanterns proliferated. Night workers on shipping and loading docks, commercial fishermen, railway repair crews, forest rangers, operators of newsstands on the sidewalks of metropolitan cities, and shopkeepers in oriental bazaars all came to rely upon the brightness and dependability of the ubiquitous gasoline and kerosene pressure lamps.It has been reported that gas lanterns have successfully guided aircraft to safe landings in the high Andes. Emergency surgery has many times been done by lantern light. In almost any natural disaster in the past 50 years, lanterns have preceded emergency electrical generators. To this day, the lantern, along with candles and flashlights, are the prudent householder's best friends in power outages.The gasoline pressure lamps and lanterns have had their successes and failures, their champions and detractors. But one thing is constant: the principles which guided their development are as unfailing today as their bright light.
