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Sofie Kovalcheck
Much of this information comes from research compiled by Bill Courter and published in his book ' Aladdin the magic Name in Lamps'. If you wish to learn more about Aladdin's rich history I recommend that you purchase and read Bill's book. Special thanks to both John Claypole and John Whitehead for the information they sent me about Aladdin UK. It helped put the picture together. The history of Aladdin marketing is very rich and can give you an idea how leading edge marketing techniques evolved during the first half of the 20th century. I highly recommend purchasing and reading Bill's book.
To understand the first 50 years of Aladdin lamp history one must understand that this is a story of two different independent companies each with their own schedules, The Mantle Lamp Company (Aladdin) and Plume & Atwood (P&A). Aladdin started as a marketing company and targeted new model numbers to coinside with the times people started buying lamps in the early fall in order to create excitement to purchase new improved lamps. It wasn't until the owner of the Connecticut Trading Company (CONTRACO) approached Plume and Atwood for a mantle lamp design that Plume and Atwood got into the mantle lamp design and manufacturing business.
For the first 8 years, Aladdin was just one of multiple marketing companies purchasing centre draft mantle lamps from Plume & Atwood. Aladdin just had control of the company markings on the lamps P&A produced for them and no contol over P&A's design and production schedules. Plume and Atwood had the R&D group rapidly developing and refining both centre draft and side draft burners at the same time. They also owned the manufacturing tooling and processes. Changes in tooling used to manufacture lamps were totally independent of Aladdin. This is why early lamp introduction dates do not always make sense and we see rolling changes in burners and sometimes in fonts during the time a given model was being sold. During the 4 months that the model 2 was in production major changes were introduced almost monthly. All because Plume & Atwood's R&D group were making rapid design improvements, having nothing to do with Aladdin. Aladdin was just marketing the latest improvements made by Plume & Atwood. This is a very important distinction to make. Early on Aladdin models were based upon what P&A developed and put into production at that time. A good example was the Aladdin model 5.The early model 5 lamp was closely modeled on the model 4, but part way through the model 5 marketing year production was switched over to the early model 6 burner and font designs but with model 5 on the wick riser knob and model 5 generators. Plume and Atwood had their own production schedule and Aladdin had to live with it. In 1916 Aladdin had made enough money to purchase the model 6 patent from Plume & Atwood. From that time on P&A manufactured burners and lamps per Aladdin's specification and marketing schedule. A couple years later aladdin acquired a glass company to make glass lamp fonts and Aladdin made the switch from centre draft lamps to side draft lamps.
At the start of the great depression the British government imposed a harsh import tax system to protect local industries and tooling was sent from Plume & Atwood to Aladdin UK so they could begin local burner manufacturing. From then until the early 1970s Aladdin UK manufactured Aladdin burners used in Europe, Africa and Australia. Aladdin England was the only Aladdin company division that manufactured their own burners.
Another important thing to keep in mind is manufacturing economics Materials cost money. Formed lamp parts cost additional money. Anything from a discontinued model thrown away was money wasted. Any part that can be used on the next lamp model was profit so anything that can be used was used. Also, tooling wears out with use and gets replaced as needed and sometimes tooling is changed to introduce a more efficient method of construction a lamp. To better understand how those model transitions were implemented I suggest reading my web page pertaining to Aladdin transition lamps.
The history of the manrle lamp company, more commonly known as Aladdn all started in 1907 when The Connecticut Trading company was formed and obtained an exclusive license to import and sell the German Practicus incandescent mantle burners in North America. The company quickly saw the advantage of being able to offer complete kerosene mantle lamps as well burners for lamp upgrades and turned to Plume & Atwood in nearby Waterbury Connecticut to manufacture lamp bases to go with their burner. Thus the American version of the Practicus lamp was born.
Early 20th century America and Canada were largely rural. Country wide sales were made by independent sales agents who were granted exclusive sales territories and went house to house to sell their products. One of the Connecticut Trading company's early independent sales agents was Victor Johnson who formed the Western Lighting Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota to sell Practicus lamps under license from The Connecticut Trading Company.
Within a year Victor Johnson moved to Chicago Illinois to form the Mantle Lamp Company of America. In 1908 he filed the incorporation papers and applied for the trademark name "Aladdin". He immediately began recruiting sales agents to sell lamps.
When Victor Johnson moved to Chicago it appears that his exclusive license to sell Practicus lamps in Minnesota may have been transferred to the Minnesota Trading Company who had been selling Felbollin mantle lamps. Victor Johnson evidently secured a different licensing agreement with the Connecticut Trading Company allowing him a larger sales region for Practicus mantle lamps under his new company name.
In the meantime, Plume and Atwood, having gained experience with the Practicus burner designed a centre draft and a side draft incandescent mantle burner. It appears that the Connecticut Trading Company started offering the center draft lamp developed by Plume & Atwood in April or May of 1908 under the CONTRACO trade name. In the same time frame Plume & Atwood sold their center draft lamps to other companies as well, creating such brands as Kim and Sunlight (not to be confused with the Sunlight brand mantle lamp later manufactured by the E. Miller & Co mantle lamp department for Montgomery Ward).
Something happened around late 1908 or early 1909. The Mantle Lamp Company which had been selling Practicus lamps under license from the Connecticut Trading Company suddenly stopped offering Plume & Atwood lamps with the Practicus burner and for a brief period offered lamps with the newly developed Sunbeam side draft burner on Plume & Atwood fonts.* This was soon followed by the Mantle Lamp Company ending up with a license to sell the centre draft lamps manufactured by Plume & Atwood under the brand Name of Aladdin. By Summer of 1909 The Mantle Lamp Company of America was offering the Aladdin model 1 lamp. The Mantle Lamp Company ceased selling Sunbeam lamps but continued offering the Sunbeam burner, followed by the Lumineer burner in 1913 as an incandescent mantle burner upgrade for owners of flat wick lamps.
The Mantle Lamp Company was able to start off the model 1 with three table lamp versions, two hanging lamp versions, a wall mounted lamp and an oil pot lamp because the tooling was already there. The lamp body tooling had already been developed for use with the Practicus and the CONTRACO lamps.
The Aladdin model 1 and 2 lamps were basically generic P&A designed centre draft mantle lamps. Early shades were generic off the shelf glass shades for that era and the wall mount brackets, fount lamp hangers and shade holders were the standard P&A type. The mantles and chimneys were imported from Germany. Within a couple years Aladdin was contracting independent glass companiesto produce glass shades and chimneys and had established their own in-house mantle manufacturing facilities. The success of the Mantle Lamp Company was based primarily upon P&A's constant design improvements, Aladdin's innovative marketing, and the use of American made parts at the time WWI started.
The models 1 and 2 lamps used a cap mantle that sat on a cone shaped opening on the gallery. The mantle's spatial relationship to the wick depended upon how the user assembled the mantle on the gallery. The result of a cap mantle that was not seated perfectly is a finicky lamp that tended to burst into a carbon depositing flame before the whole mantle was glowing.
The Mantle Lamp Company received it's first patent on 4 April 1911 that covered a new mantle, gallery and generator design. The new mantle effectively moved the cone from the gallery to the mantle and created a controlled more exact spacing by virtue of the mantle locking into the new gallery. Their patent covered the new mantle, gallery and generator (flame spreader). This did two things for Aladdin. It provided Aladdin with complete control over manufacturing and sales of the Kone Kap mantle. And the Kone Kap mantle's precision location on the gallery created a much easier to operate less fussy lamp than any competitor had. The new mantle, gallery and flame spreader were rushed into production as quickly as possible and got phased into the model 2 lamp production (model 2-3 transition lamp). Also during that year a new improved the wick raiser design and method of producing threads in the table font were introduced.
Victor Johnson realized the importance of marketing to support the company's rapidly growing force of retailers and independent sales agents. The company advertised in periodicals, over the radio and even with slides shown in movie theaters just before a movie began. They were always trying new promotions and ways to sell product. Aladdin devised and offered marketing displays to allow retailers to showcase Aladdin brand lamps.
The company tried to have new product to offer customers each year to generate renewed product interest and persuade existing customers to upgrade, much in the same way as the automotive industry. When they did not have functional improvements, Aladdin incremented the model name by one and slid in appearance changes when economical. For instance the model 10 and 11 lamps are marketing upgrades of the second year model 9 lamp. Later the glass lamps allowed Aladdin to continually keep a new mix of products in front of the customer to provide a constant level of excitement. All this without having to increment the burner tooling.
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