In 1907 Victor Johnson formed the Western Lighting Company (Possibly as a division of the Connecticut Trading Company)to market the German made Practicus side draft burner on an American made lamp body.  This burner took a frameless mantle that was hung over the wick. The lamp bodies or fonts were manufactured by the Plume & Atwood company. 

By 1908, Victor incorporated his company as the Mantle Lamp Company of America. The initial product was a range of Plume & Atwood  (P&A) lamp fonts and the Practicus burner.

Victor acquired the rights to sell a centre drought burner developed at P&A and the Aladdin model 1 lamp was born and offered for sale in 1909.  Over the next three years the burner evolved quickly.  There are at least three different versions of the model 2 burner which was offered for sale during a single year.

At that time, P&A owned all the lamp patents and tooling to create the mantle lamps sold by several companies including the new Mantle Lamp Company. Other lamp marketing companies such as KIM Lamp, Sunlight and CONTRACO were selling the same lamps with their names on them. Side drought versions of these mantle lamps were sold under the names Sunbeam, Lumineer and Home Supply (Beacon).

The success of the Mantle Lamp Company was based primarily upon marketing and the use of American made parts. There were over one hundred companies selling mantle lamps within the US when the company was started, most of whom used German made burners on American manufactured fonts. World War I stopped shipments of the German made burners, wicks, mantles and chimneys. By the end of World War I there were just a handful of companies selling mantle lamps left, all of which used American made parts, and Aladdin had complete market dominance.

Mr. Johnson appears to have been a marketing genius who kept his company at the fore front of the latest marketing technologies. Yes, the Kone Kap patent gave the mantle lamp Company a technological leadership, but Aladdin sold the mantle to it's competition for use on their lamps. It was advanced marketing techniques that really built the company over the competition. Winning the gold medal at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco firmly established the Mantle Lamp Company as the dominant leader in the field.

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 and the parts were already being manufactured for several other lamp marketing companies.

The Aladdin model 1 and 2 lamps were basically generic P&A centre drought mantle lamps. Early shades were generic off the shelf glass shades for that era and the shade holders were the standard P&A type. Within a couple years Aladdin was contracting independent glass companies produce glass shades and chimneys.

Many early Aladdin Lamp models underwent substantial changes during the Aladdin model selling year.  I believe this to be because P&A had their own schedule and The Mantle Lamp company was initially at the mercy of P&A's schedule as were the other companies that sold P&A manufactured lamps.

The Mantle Lamp Company received it's first patent on 4 April 1911 that covered a new mantle, gallery and generator design. These 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 P&A improved the wick raiser design and changed their method of producing threads in the table font. The model 2 production year was a moving target with at least 4 possibly 5 different table lamp configurations produced during a single lamp selling season.

The model 3 lamp used the new mantle, gallery and generator. All the other parts, including the burner base were generic Plume & Atwood, made under P&A patents.

The model 4 lamp saw a return to using the less expensive to manufacture current generic P&A generator while retaining the Kone Kap mantle and gallery. The latest P&A burner improvements were incorporated as well.

Late during the 12 months of model 5 production (1913-14) Plume & Atwood completely redesigned their burner. The new burner was phased into sales near the end of the model year as old stock was depleted. The late model 5 burner and the  early model 6 burners are identical except for the number on the adjuster knob.

1917 brought the model 7 lamp which was the first model that was uniquely Aladdin. The new wider base burner was covered under new Aladdin patents as well as the new wick raiser, generator, under burner shade holder, and more.

In 1918, two years after Aladdin ceased US sales of the model 6 lamp, they were granted a patent on the model 6 burner. Before that time the model 6 burner in various forms was produced by P&A and sold to other lamp marketing companies. In that time frame the Solar lamp used a model 6 burner with the Solar name attached. I suspect this patent spelled the end of P&A manufactured generic mantle lamps.

Samuel Johnson was seeing home and business electrification progressing in the United states and decided to branch out to keep the company strong. Besides opening offices in other countries to market lamps, he formed Aladdin Industries in 1919 to make products based upon vacuum technology. This was followed with ventures into other household products. Lamps were mostly a seasonal product and The mantle Lamp Company needed products that would sell well year around keep the income flow more steady.

Aladdin purchased a glass company in 1926 to gain complete control over shade and chimney manufacture. This lead to the introduction of glass lamps in 1932.

Aladdin was to keep its partnership with Plume & Atwood for as long as metal lamps and burners were manufactured within the United States. All American made metal lamps and burners up through the Nashville model C were produced by P&A for Aladdin.

There are really three things that are important to the understanding of Aladdin lamps and their success: The Kone Kap mantle, marketing and manufacturing economics.

The KoneKap Mantle

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.

Aladdin patented the new Kone Kap Mantle in 1911. 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 patents that went into the model 3 Aladdin created a lamp superior to the competition and eventually spelled doom for other brands of mantle lamps.

World War I

The mantle lamp industry was created in Germany where the incandescent mantle was invented. Designing a mantle lamp burner requires a fair amount of engineering and the technology was developed by a few companies in Germany who saw financial opportunities in expanding their market abroad.  A number of partnerships were formed in America where a new marketing company would purchase imported burners, place them on American made lamp bases and sell the resulting mantle lamps.  Aladdin started out as such a company and luckily they partnered with Plume & Atwood who had the engineering capability to design their own incandescent lamp burners.  This quickly eliminated Aladdin's dependence upon parts imported from Germany.   During WWI German lamp parts became unavailable in America. Americans suddenly disliked things made in Germany and all the small American lamp companies using German components went out of business. There was a limited return of German manufactured mantle lamps between World War I and World War II such as the lamps manufactured by Ehrich and Graetz sold by Montgomery Ward during the 1930's.

Marketing

Victor Johnson realized the importance of marketing and built a strong network of sales people to keep the Aladdin name out in front of customers, keep their retail outlets excited and up to date with the latest marketing collateral and products.

Aladdin became a marketing leader both in print and radio advertisements. They were always trying new promotions and ways to sell product.

Aladdin was one of the first companies to make use of door to door salesmen. The Salesmen were door to door independent retailers.  They purchased a salesman kit and stock at a wholesale discount.
An Aladdin model 1 salesman kit. This one has an interesting mixture of contents, A model 1 one quart fancy foot lamp, correct shade, unmounted replacement wicks, a single KoneKap mantle in model 4 packaging and three Sears Bright As Day mantles

In Samuel Johnson's time, the company tried to have new product to offer customers each year. They felt this was crucial to maintaining customer interest and even to get 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. The models 4 and early 5 are basically marketing upgrades of the model 3 lamp as the 10 and 11 model lamps are marketing upgrades of the model 9 lamp. 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.

Manufacturing Economics

Making tooling to form metal is expensive and takes time. Unless you are talking about changing some minor stamp dye in a tool you need to sell a lot of lamps to pay for tooling changes. It was a lot cheaper to have your company name stamped onto existing generic parts than to pay for the tooling to make lamps. The fact that P&A was selling the same parts to a number of companies just kept the prices more affordable to struggling new marketing and sales companies and allowed P&A to make a good profit.

When Aladdin first started working with Plume & Atwood, they used existing tooling to have their lamps manufactured. As time progressed Aladdin's ability to pay for their own tooling increased and the lamps became more uniquely Aladdin.

But it was not until 1917 when the model 7 went into production that Aladdin lamps became uniquely Aladdin. It is my guess that the wild success of the model 6 lamp allowed Aladdin to be able to afford their own unique tooling using features that Aladdin quickly patented.

To keep costs down, tooling changes were minimal and the existing tooling was used through as many models as possible. If you compare individual stampings of adjacent models you can get an idea of how many parts were carried over from model to model.

With two exceptions Aladdin didn't just didn't go to P&A and say make me a new design with new tooling for the next sales season. All new tooling is what makes the model 7 such a revolutionary lamp. It required a total change from existing P&A lamp tooling. The other time was when P&A tooled up the model C after all the model B and earlier tooling was destroyed in a flood.

The Mantle Lamp Company by any other name...

In 1914 The Mantle Lamp Company created a wholly owned subsidiary named Aladdin industries to develop and sell thermos bottles and other temperature conserving items. In 1949 the two companies merged taking the subsidiary company name, Aladdin Industries.  Also in 1949 the Aladdin lamp line was revamped to minimize manufacturing costs with less expensive to manufacture lamp founts and accessories such as wall mounts and bug screens replacing more ornate (more expensive to manufacture) parts. Since post WWII housing construction had lower ceilings, ceiling extensions were discontinued. Less expensive painted finishes were introduced to replace the more expensive plating finishes. 

Interestingly, most American Aladdin Lamp collectors tend not to collect lamps or lamp accessories newer than around 1949.  There seems to be little American collector interest in the Last of the model B lamps and the newer lamps that came afterwards.

Glass, Glass Glass!

In 1926 The Mantle Lamp Company purchased the Lippincott Glass Company to produce glass lamps and shades. In 1930 the first vase lamps were introduced using model 12 oil pots in Aladdin manufactured glass bottomless vases. These same glass vases were also used to make Aladdin electric lamps as well.

In 1932 the first Aladdin glass lamp was introduced with the new model A side draft burner. Glass molds are much cheaper to make than metal form tooling and Aladdin started producing many styles each in several colours so that there was always something new to entice the customer. The customer now could choose among several styles and colours to match their room decor.

We must all make sacrifices ...

During world war II a number of materials needed for the war effort became restricted. Brass was strictly rationed during the war years as it was needed for shell casings and many other uses. First to feel the restrictions was the Aladdin UK division.

The Model 14 burner stayed in full production at Greenford during WW II. Aladdin UK was granted a license by the Board of Trade to buy rolled brass strip from certain ordnance factories because lighting was considered essential.

In 1942 uranium became restricted and Aladdin had to change their formula for alacite. Brass had also become a restricted product in the United States early in the war. Aladdin was allowed to continue using brass for burners because much of America was still unelectrified and the burners were designed around the thermal characteristics of brass.

However production of brass metal lamps, wick raisers and wick cleaners ceased until the war ended in 1945. Between 1943 and 1945 the only metal lamps manufactured by Aladdin North America were steel font lamps for the caboose lamp market. These font lamps were galvanized inside and out then coated black. Wick cleaners and wick raisers made during these years were also made from steel and then plated for resistance to rust. At the end of the war, the steel font lamp was discontinued and brass lamps went back into production.

Aladdin Australia made lamp fonts out of steel.  Since the outer finish of the WWII lamps was painted, these fonts were not galvanized.  Many of the fonts rusted from the inside over time.

Aladdin took their burner technology to the war effort with a number of products ranging from field cook stoves and refrigerators for field hospitals to shipboard coffee urns. In England Aladdin burners were used in aircraft parked outside as dehumidifiers to keep moisture out of equipment. The thermos products part of the company branched out and grew as well.

All good things ...

By 1952 sales of kerosene lamps had decreased greatly with the post war electrification of rural America. The glass plant was closed and almost all the lamp molds were destroyed. The mould for the plain stem Washington drape (B-53) and the glass font lamp were retained and an outside company produced lamps from these molds until model B was discontinued.

Aladdin headquarters was moved from Chicago to Nashville in 1949. At this time the wick adjuster knob tooling was changed so that Chicago was replaced by Nashville on the model 12 and B burners (12 burners were still in production for the parts replacement market and possibly export).

A flood in late winter 1954 washed away or ruined Aladdin's tooling at Plume & Atwood abruptly ending model B production and the production of new parts for older lamps. Until then model 12 burners, model 6 and 12 flame spreaders and model 6 wick carriers were still in production to help existing customers keep their model 3 through 12 lamps working properly and for some overseas markets.

By this time Aladdin's lamp business generated only a very small percentage of the  company profit and Aladdin did not want to put any real money into new high quality tooling that might not get a return from lamp sales. The remaining stock of model B burners were allocated to B-53 lamp production which kept the clear plain stem Washington Drape on the price list to September 1955. This lamp with a Nashville burner was the very last of the Aladdin model B lamps, and the last Aladdin glass lamp for a few decades.

In early 1955 when the flood damage was cleaned up, a model C burner was tooled up by Plume & Atwood (small round wick adjuster labeled Nashville) and lamps were made using inexpensive aluminium materials. The aluminium lamps looked cheap and I suspect sales reflected the looks.

England had its own burner tooling and was not affected by the flood, but economic pressures led them to revise the model 14 burner to make it less expensive to manufacture.  Improvements were added at the same time and the model 21 was born in 1953

The Australians never made their own burners.  They were importing UK model 14 burners and offering them as model 16A burners.  They were also importing american model B lamps an offering them as model 16B.  After 1954 Aladdin Australia sold lamps with UK made model 21 burners.

In 1963 Aladdin UK model 21C burners were imported to the US to provide a higher quality alternative to the model C aluminium lamps.

The model 23 burner (reworked model 21C burner ) was introduced in 1969. The first model 23 burners were English made. Eventually model 23 burner production was moved to Hong Kong (The English tooling stayed in England and new tooling was made in Hong Kong). There were a number of fit and quality issues with the Hong Kong burners that slowly got worked out over time and through several versions of the burner.

Inexpensive model C lamps were made in Brazil in 1974-75 primarily for the third world export market and as a low cost alternative to the expensive model 23 lamp in the US market. However the steel Brazilian burners did not work well at all. Sometime during 1975 new Brazilian burners were shipped to Aladdin UK for modification to correct burning problems. The root problem is that the Aladdin burner technology evolved using brass thermal characteristics and the Brazilian burners were mild steel. It was concluded that the design could not work properly with the different thermal characteristics of steel and the Brazilian model C burner was discontinued.

By the late 1980's the company producing Lox-on chimneys for Aladdin was having problems producing the chimney foot and chimneys were being sold that required reworking of the gallery tabs and sometimes even then did not stand straight on the lamp.

Through much of the 1970s, '80s and going into the '90s Aladdin had been outsourcing to low cost manufacturers who just were not making parts that fit or worked well. Expensive lamps were being offered for sale that often did not fit or work quite right. It seemed that Aladdin Industries just did not want to discontinue its root business nor did it want to spend the money and effort to revitalize it. The Aladdin lamp division seemed to be sliding slowly towards oblivion as the lamps slowly faded from public memory. By 1998, Aladdin's lamp division profits were around 1% of the Aladdin Industries annual income.

But wait!

On 5 April 1999 a group of Aladdin enthusiasts headed by J. W. Courter and Tom Teeter purchased the Aladdin mantle lamp division from Aladdin Industries. Tom Teeter owned a company named The American Lamp Supply Company that offered reproduction and new classic lamps that used the model 23 burner. The merging of the the two companies provided a large increase in Aladdin lamp models.

The new company has been working hard to upgrade the quality of that lamp parts and to provide the product line with a much needed face lift that reflects the Aladdin lamp roots.

At this point it seems that the new company is largely supported by sales of limited edition boutique lamps to collectors. I sincerely hope that they can break that barrier and successfully expand their market to non Aladdin collectors.

The unsung Savior of Aladdin

I believe that Aladdin today owes its very continued existence to Aladdin Industries Ltd, UK. The British empire imposed strict import tariffs early during the great depression to protect British industry and provide workers with jobs. The Greenford manufacturing plant was built to make Aladdin kerosene heaters, lamps and other products for sale within their empire. The Greenford plant opened in 1932. Before then all Aladdin lamps sold into the empire were of American manufacture, even if the wick adjuster knob said London.

As an aside, Chimneys made for Aladdin UK were manufactured by the glass-makers Chance Bros in England, a very large concern that was in business from 1824-1981 and employing over 3,000 people at its height. Records indicate that in 1934, Chance was supplying Aladdin UK with 12,000 chimneys per week. The 'Hysil' trade name often associated with these chimneys derives from Chance - a borosilicate (heat-resisting) glass mixture. The trade name was bought up by J A Joblings (the UK licensee of Pyrex) in about 1960.

I do not know for sure who manufactured glass shades for Aladdin UK, but it was highly likely that this was done by Chance Bros. as well. They had a large globe department for manufacturing opal-flashed glass.  So they had the means to make the shades for Aladdin UK.  (This data is from research done on the Chance Bros. by David Encill).

Americans did not accept the difficulties involved with inserting a wick into the model A burner. With the wick adjustment gear inside the wick movement area the wick tended to hang up during insertion. The model B burner was designed to return the gearing to it's previous location. The expensive, and now unused model A burner tooling as shipped to the Greenford plant in the UK to enable them to manufacture their own burners.

The model A tooling became the UK model 14 (Super Aladdin) that was used through 1953. This burner was also sold into Australia as the model 16A.

In 1954 this tooling was modified to incorporate improvements and manufacturing cost reductions.  This reworked burner become the model 21, then later the model 21C. 

The superior burning and quality English model 21C lamps replaced the P&A made model C lamp in 1963.

The English tooling was revised yet again and became the model 23 in 1969.

Had it not been for Aladdin Industries UK, Aladdin lamps could have very likely gone out of production sometime between the mid nineteen sixties and seventies.

Every Aladdin burner made today is a direct descendent from the model A tooling sent to the UK and the common model 23 brass table lamp font is a direct descendent from the UK model 12 table lamp.

If it was not for the transfer of the model A tooling to Greenford UK, the flood in late 1954 that swept through the P&A factory would have spelled the eventual doom of Aladdin Lamps.

TIME LINE

1908 Mantle Lamp Co. Founded. Sold Practicus lamps

1909 Model 1

1910 first two Canadian offices opened

1911 First patent covers new mantle, gallery & generator. Cap mantle replaced by KoneKap mantle

1913 First wick cleaners

1915 Model 6 First floor lamp

1915 Model 6 floor lamps converted to electricity became Aladdin's first electric lamp.

1915 Model 6 won gold metal at World's Fair

1917 US entered WWI and parts for competitors using German made burners, mantles & chimneys became unavailable putting them out of business

1917 Model 7 was first lamp using all new tooling designed just for Aladdin

1917 First bug screens

1917-18 saw a slew of patents making the Aladdin lamp unique from the competition

1918 Aladdin granted patent for #6 burner possibly spelling end of production for other companies using P&A designed mantle lamps.

1919 Aladdin Industries Ltd. UK

1919 Aladdin Industries founded to make vacuum bottle products

1921 Model 10 first reinforced wicks & end to wick carrier

1924 Aladdin Industries Ltd Australia

1926 Lippincott Glass Company purchased

1928 First Aladdin manufactured glass shades

1928 First paper shades

1928 Name generator changed to flame spreader

1928 Model 12 Lox-on mantle and chimney introduced

1930 Production began on electric lamps

1930-1935 Model 12 vase lamps

1932 First glass lamps

1932 Australian manufacture of lamp bodies started. Never manufactured burners

1933 First English made lamps

1935-1954 Glass font lamps

1937 First caboose lamps

1938 First alacite lamps

1938 Aladdin glass shades discontinued thru 1951

1942 Alacite formula changed

1943 Name bug screen changed to insect screen

1943 -1945 No brass lamps manufactured

1944 - 1952 bakelite lamps were manufactured in Australia

1949 Mantle Lamp Co. merged with Aladdin Industries

1949 Main offices moved from Chicago to Nashville, Model 12 & Model B Nashville burners thru 1954

1949 Much of the lamp line revised.  Paint replaced plating for most metal lamp applications.

1951 Outsourced glass shades available

1952 Glass plant closed All glass molds destroyed with exception of plain stem Washington drape and font.

1952 Last floor lamp

1954 Flood destroyed all metal lamp and burner tooling. Model B discontinued. Remaining burner stock on hand went to B-53

1955 Last Aladdin glass lamp, B-53, removed from price list

1974 Glass lamp production resumed with undated model 23 Lincoln Drape

1978 Aladdin manufactured a small number of model 23 student lamps for its 75th anniversary. They were priced high and not readily available to the average consumer. Eventually the last stock was sold cheaply through an inventory liquidation house. These have become valued by collectors.

1984 Aladdin Canada closed

1994 Fenton started manufacturing a line of glass lamps for Aladdin

1999 Kerosene lamp division sold. New owners put a lot of effort into manufacturing quality and expanding the product line.

2008 Aladdin reintroduced the parlor lamp fount design was a model 23 lamp as a 100th anniversary commemoration lamp.

Blue ribbon won by Aladdin for the model 6 lamp  in 1915