Wouldn't you like to MODERNIZE YOUR KITCHEN?

I'm in a stove sort of mood. I have no idea what that means.

These ads are both from the May 1937 Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

I've never seen a stove like this one from the Perfection Stove Company. In fact, until now I'd never even heard of the Perfection Stove Company. But let us not impeded our need for information. I found some historic information here.

In 1888, Henry Parsons Crowell was approached by Frank Drury to build, and market, a 'lamp stove'. The two men discussed the practicability of such an item. A patent was applied for; the Cleveland Foundry Company began building and then selling the stove. The 'Perfection Stove Company' was born.

In 1888 the Cleveland Foundry Company was formed. They manufactured a line of oil lamp stoves, along with many lamp companies such as Bradley & Hubbard and Miller. In 1894, the plant started producing portable heaters.  These heaters used the "store lamp" wick that had been standardized by Rochester in 1884. In 1901 Francis Drury approached John D. Rockefeller of Cleveland owner of Standard Oil Company. At the time Standard Oil was delivering kerosene to homes and businesses for use in kerosene lamps. Rockefeller knew that with use of the Drury Stove the demand for this kerosene would increase substantially and it did. Rockerfeller selected the company to design, develop and manufacture for it a complete line of stoves which were to be sold under the name "Perfection" to dealers by a group of 300 Standard Oil salesmen. This arrangement was continued by other oil companies.

The Perfection product lineup was extremely important to the growth of American civilization.  By 1918, over 5,000,000 heaters were in use.  By 1922, over 3,000,000 Perfection kitchen stoves and ranges were in use in American homes!  A sizeable percentage of households used a Perfection product on a daily basis. (SOURCE: Miles Stair's Wick Shop)

Now the Coleman Company I'm familiar with, but only as a company making stoves and lights for camping. I still have an old Coleman camp stove and a couple old Coleman lamps. I can still hear the sound of the lamp lighting and the bright glow at the campsite. But kitchen stoves? I've never seen one.



According to this newspaper column from the June 3, 1937 Lodi News-Sentinel it was a pretty doggone good stove to have out in rural areas.

 

Here's an ad in the same paper a few pages away. Coleman was certainly getting their money's worth.

To see some even older stoves and the men who sold them click here to see my post at Sepia Saturday of a Tappan store in 1927.