The War Years

Several events were to affect The Mantle Lamp Company during the early 1940s. As the nation’s war effort intensified, the manufacture of electric lamps was temporarily discontinued in 1943. Aladdin was granted permission to use copper by the War Production Board during World War II and manufacture kerosene burners for glass kerosene lamps. The usage of Aladdin kerosene lamps reduced the need for copper wire to electrify homes and thereby further aided the war effort. The Aladdin kerosene burner was used in the famous Servel and Electrolux refrigeration units which preserved serum and plasma on the battlefields. The company also developed several items essential in the war: a midget foxhole stove and a pressure lantern both of which burned leaded or white gasoline; a barometric bomb detonation fuse; permeability tuning for radios; and precision parts for military radio equipment. Meanwhile, the thermos bottle became one of Aladdin’s principal products in the domestic market.
V. S. Johnson died unexpectedly in Washington, D.C. on August 29, 1943.
His son, V. S. Johnson, Jr., took over the reins and provided leadership for further growth and expansion after discharge from the army in 1945. He initiated plans to build a new plant in Nashville, Tennessee, and to expand the production of Aladdin thermos bottles. In 1949 he moved the main offices from Chicago to modern facilities in Nashville, where the company remains today.

Aladdin Industries, Inc. was formed as a subsidiary of The Mantle Lamp Company in 1919 in Chicago to make and sell Thermalware® and vacuum bottles. In 1949, The Mantle Lamp Company of America merged with its subsidiary (Aladdin Industries, Inc.) taking the latter name as being more representative of its diverse products. In the same year, the vacuum-ware operations were moved from Alexandria to Nashville, Tennessee. Aladdin’s Hopalong Cassidy lunch box changed the way children carried their lunch to school for the next 20 years.

                     early 1900's   the beginning   the war years   changing of the guard