Lloyd Groff Copeman
original manuscript by Marsha J. Davenport, edited by Kent L. Copeman
Born in the rural village
of Farmers Creek, Michigan [Hadley Township] in 1881, Lloyd Groff
Copeman was by circumstances and inclination led to become an inventor
of national and undoubtedly even international importance. Yet,
the mention of the name Lloyd G. Copeman usually receives only looks
of indifference or simple curiosity aroused by hearing the name
of some unknown person. It is interesting then, by history buffs,
to take a close look at the remarkable productive inventive career
of an important local figure.
As a child, he attended
the one-room school in Farmers Creek, Lapeer Senior High School,
and finally Michigan State University where he pursued a course
in study in Mechanical Engineering. According to his youngest daughter
Betty (Elizabeth Jane) Copeman Gerlach, he was summarily expelled
from each school he attended. (1) In later years though, MSU offered
him an honorary doctorate which he refused stating: “When
the degree would have done me some good you wouldn’t give
it to me. Now I have little desire to accept it.” (2)
Copeman was a precocious
child and exhibited his inventive tendencies at an early age by
inviting a mechanism that ran on a clock-like instrument which turned
his father’s grindstone “automatically” for about
half an hour, thereby allowing the 10 year old Lloyd to divert his
attention from his assigned chores to more important things like
swimming and fishing. (3) There is some contention as to this being
his first actual invention. Another, perhaps folklorist school of
recollection has it that Copeman’s first invention was really
a remote controlled paddle attached to a strategic place in the
school house privy which would deliver an unexpected blow to the
unsuspecting occupant.(4) Which was truly Lloyd’s first invention
is difficult to ascertain however. His daughter Betty described
him as “a character from one end to the other...”(5)
thus both items are probable products of the inventive genius of
Prior to the advent of
his inventive career proper, Mr. Copeman was employed at Baldwin
Locomotive Works as a mechanist apprentice. From there he went to
work in rapid succession for the Philadelphia Edison Electrical
Company, the Washington Power Company of Spokane, the Detroit Edison
Company and Consumer’s Power Company. It was in Washington
state that Lloyd married his sweetheart of school days, Hazel Berger,
(whom he had followed out west), in September of 1904. It was in
1906 while working for the Washington Power Co. That Lloyd divined
the mechanics for his first truly remarkable invention - the electric
stove. The idea for the electric stove was based in a principle
relative to Copeman’s development of a thermostat he had invented
(for the power company) which gave automatic warning when high-tension
wire transformer stations were about to burn out. Copeman merely
replaced the soap-stones from the widely used “fireless cooker”
with electrical units which were thermostatically controlled.(6)
In various states, the
Lloyd G. Copeman family moved back to Michigan settling in Flint.
In 1901 he was granted his first patent on an instrument for cauterizing
wounds during surgery.(7) After this initial inventive venture,
he seemed to invent things in series or stages and his first major
stage was inventing high-pressure and various other greasing systems
for automobiles, which in effect are still in use today. One could
say that Copeman was an inventor of circumstances by observing the
emergence of his inventions relative to his personal associations:
the electric stove with the several power companies; and the automobile
greasing systems with his friends and business acquaintances.
Copeman was, by his daughter
Betty’s account, “practically a charter member of the
Detroit Athletic Club..., this was in the days when everything was
hopping down there. He knew Edison, Ford, and he knew the Fisher
boys and the Dodge boys. ...”(8) Not only did he have these
noted associates, but he was also closely associated with J. D.
Dort, C. S. Mott, and E. Atwood of Flint. This, Copeman was very
familiar with those persons around whom the infant automobile manufacturing
industry developed. Not surprising then is the fact that the bulk
of his 600 or so inventions during the first 15 - 20 years of the
20th century dealt with the automobile.
It was his acquaintance
especially with J. D. Dort and E. Atwood that gave Copeman the boost
he required to establish his first independent concern - The Copeman
Electric Stove Company. Dallas Dort was the primary financier of
this venture but also influenced others favorably to invest in the
project. Dort and some 22 stockholders exhibited a great deal of
faith in the inventive genius of Copeman by investing $500,000.
in the enterprise.(9)
The Copeman Electric
Stove Company was established in 1912 and produced not only the
Copeman electric stove, but also the “toaster that turns toast,”(10)
the Copeman version of the electric toaster which had an attachment
by which the toast was turned without having to be touched; the
fore-runner of the pop-up version. However, as the company name
implied, the major product that was turned out was electric stoves.
Sales of this innovative
product did not go to well though. In a letter written to his father
on November 21, 1913 Lloyd conveyed the message that, “Everything
is moving along fine here now that our difficulties have at last
been adjusted, and we expect to be in the market now within a very
short time with our new stoves.”(11) Copeman was optimistic;
unfortunately the sales figures for the stove were not.
The reasons for such
poor initial sales are not clear but there are a number of factors
which undoubtedly played a large role in the sales stagnation. Perhaps
the primary concern was that electricity was a new thing in 1913
and the average house was not sufficiently wired, if indeed it was
wired at all, and most householders were most apprehensive about
electricity as well they might have been. Wooden frame houses were
the order of the days and most people were loath to add yet another
potentially dangerous element to their homes - namely electricity.
At a Philadelphia manufacturers
demonstration in 1918, Copeman was representing his product and
company. He had gone undisturbed by a single distributor for the
entire day when a gentleman approached him expressing some interest
in the stove. After viewing a complete demonstration of the stove
the man asked, “And how are you doing with your product young
we’ve got a good product, but darned poor sales organization
- that’s me,’ “was Copeman’s reply.
“ ‘We have
a good sales organization and no likely product,’ the man
answered.”(12) The man was the president of Westinghouse (a
national products company), who later in the year bought the Copeman
Electric Stove Company. (Betty Gerlach adds that from that time
on, all appliances in the Copeman household were strictly Westinghouse).(13)
Westinghouse succeeded where Copeman failed due to the extensive
nature of the larger company’s marketing range. This was an
era of the gas stove and only a company of the magnitude of Westinghouse
could be successfully sell a product that truly was before its time.
It was in this same year
that the stove company was sold, 1918, that E. W. Atwood helped
Copeman establish the Copeman Laboratory, a means by which the inventor
could develop his ideas. It was in Copeman Laboratory’s located
in Flint, that Lloyd did the bulk of his work.
At this juncture, it
is interesting to contemplate just exactly why Lloyd G. Copeman
chose to be an inventor - to be a “professional” inventor.
In many cases the primary motivation for inventing is the monetary
advantage. The question thus, is does this seem to be the case with
Lloyd Copeman? The evidence seems to suggest that this is not the
case. While it is true that Mr. Copeman made a sizable income from
patent royalties, the majority of his inventions were the result
of his personal acquaintances, past experience, suggestions, or
mere flukes of fate.
His high-pressure greasing
system [The Copeman Lubricating System], for example, would certainly
be evidence of invention by association. His familiarity with the
early automotive geniuses like Henry Ford, the Fishers, Dodges,
and J. D. Dort would definitely lend validity to this idea. Undoubtedly
these men, when they gathered, would discuss the latest automotive
innovations and whatever problems they were encountering. It seems
logical to conclude, therefore, that as personal acquaintances,
these men were a positive force in directing Copeman’s inventive
The electric stove was
a product which directly resulted from Copeman’s work with
the electrical power companies. His experience and experiments with
transformers, and heating and lighting elements which were thermostatically
controlled led him to the idea of replacing “soapstones”
which were previous heating units for fireless cookers with the
heat element connected to a thermostat. This work experience was
surely also helpful in Copeman’s extensive work later on with
Mrs. Hazel Copeman was
the motivation behind Lloyd’s invention of the “flip-flop”
toaster. The story is told that while shopping one day, Mrs. Copeman
pointed to an electric toaster in a store window and asked her husband
why he didn’t invent a toaster that would allow one to turn
the toast without touching it.(15) Mr. Copeman went home and did
precisely that, thus inventing the first electric toaster, forerunner
of the pop-up toaster of today. [The actual patent credits Hazel
Copeman as the inventor.]
lucrative patent and the one, which, perhaps more than any others
was a result of unadulterated fate, was the patent for rubber ice
cube trays. Getting cold, hard ice out of a cold metal tray was
next to impossible yet the solution, today, seems so obvious. The
most widely noted account of how Copeman got the idea for the rubber
ice tray is this: While he was out collecting maple sap in the sugar
bush one cold February day, the ice and slush began to collect and
freeze on Copeman’s rubber boots. He sat down and contemplatively
worked the toe of his rubber boots. He watched somewhat disinterestedly
at first as the ice cracked and flew off the boots. “Oh my
god, a rubber ice tray,”(16) exclaimed Copeman, and so was
born the biggest money making patent (the royalties from the rubber
ice tray alone netted better than $1 million),(17) of Copeman’s
career. The patent was a “basic” patent that covered
freezing ice in any form.
Another of Copeman’s
major inventions was the result of his attempt to deal with a health
problem his wife suffered. Hazel endured seasonal asthma and in
order to relieve her problems caused by the pollen and heat, in
the summer home he rigged up two different room cooling systems.
The first was a network of plumbing pipes which ran around the room.
These pipes were filled with water which was pumped up from the
basement, circulated through the pipes in the walls and consequently
cooled the room.
Yet another system was
devised by this ingenuous man who achieved the same goal with the
added function of air purification. This system was a bit more bizarre
and created a stir among Copeman’s neighbors.(18) In order
both to cool the room and filter the air, Copeman installed four
lawn sprinklers on the roof of the house, one at each end and two
in the middle. The water flowing over the house not only cooled
it, but it also removed the irritating particles in the air which
caused his wife’s respiratory distress.(19)
The results of both of
these rather unusual cooling devices was a large number of inventions
and patents dealing with refrigeration. His first patent for refrigerating
apparatus was issued in November, 1921, and for the next decade,
all patents issued to Copeman from the United States Patent Office
dealt solely with the inner mechanics, diverse features, and exterior
construction of electric refrigerators.(20) This is an obvious example
of the stereo-typical inventor obsessed with an idea, who keeps
improving on it until he gets it right. All of the patents granted
to Copeman relating to refrigeration were assigned to E. W. Atwood,
all products of the Copeman Laboratory and all results of the generosity
of Atwood and the genius of Copeman.
There was another area
in which Copeman was obsessed; rubber latex. His work with latex
covered a great many years and yielded an enormous variety on inventions
from non-run silk stockings to rust proofing automobiles, to filter
cigarettes, to tamper proof and water proof envelopes and packages.
Though he patented all ideas with the exception of automobile rust
proofing, not much came of the effort and personal sacrifice; effort
on Copeman’s part, personal sacrifice on his family’s
His daughter as well
as the Flint Journal give an account of how all the ladies in the
Copeman family and their friends, and even the women who owned the
Christie Shop in Flint where the Copeman women bought their clothes,
wore insufferable hot, heavy sticky and unbending silk stockings
which Copeman had treated with latex to prevent them from running.
Only through their long suffering and suggestions was Copeman able
to bring the process to a point at which the stockings were both
run-proof and comfortable.
In an attempt to produce
a means by which to rustproof automobiles, the Copeman family was
again used as “guinea pigs.” After buying his wife a
new car [Chevrolet business coup] for Christmas, Copeman proceeded
to cover the exterior with a coating of rubber latex, cutting the
latex out of the windows. For the life of that car, it went everywhere
with the mud colored coating of latex.(21) Perhaps it was due to
the unseemly appearance the latex lent to the automobile that the
process never received a patent, but for whatever reason, this was
one of Copeman’s inventive ideas whose time had not yet come,
due perhaps to inadequate technology.
Undoubtedly, the most
noteworthy idea of Copeman’s whose time had not come was his
attempt to drill natural gas wells in various places in Lapeer County.
In 1935, Copeman and a group of his associates spent $100,000 in
the development of the wells. Said Copeman, “I believe Lapeer
County holds a vast treasure in this natural resource and am confident
that when the story is fully told the so called Thumb of Michigan,
including Lapeer County will rank with any section of the state
in this respect.”(22) Copeman was certainly correct in his
statement; unfortunately he and his colleagues were unable, with
their equipment, to reach the stratum which would produce a heavy
flow of Antrim level gas. The wells that were dug flowed gas slightly
and then flowed water. For all his hard work and large capital investment,
what Lloyd Copeman had when the project was completed was a number
of artesian wells. Though this particular venture may have failed,
it demonstrated definite far sightedness on Copeman’s - as
fifty years later, natural gas is being discovered in large quantities
in Lapeer County.
Until his death in 1956,
Lloyd G. Copeman continued to invent various things. During World
War II, he was consulted by the government concerning his latex,
tamper and waterproof packages. Copeman improved his idea to a plausible
point and it was used by the government extensively for a number
of years. The mechanics behind the idea was to wrap the object (for
waterproofing) in a paper wrapper and then coat that wrapper with
latex and wrap the package again with yet another piece of latex
coated paper. The latex would not only adhere to itself, but would
also produce a moisture impervious seal.(23) The tamper-proof envelope
was on the order of the self-adhesive envelopes used today. Two
strips of latex were applied to the flaps on the envelope and pressed
together to seal it. The only way to open the envelope then was
in some way tear it, and thus, if the envelope were torn it had
been tampered with.(24)
Copeman credited the
success of his career to J. D. Dort, E .W. Atwood and to John M.
Kisselle, his patent attorney from Detroit. Copeman and Kisselle
developed a deep personal friendship which lasted until the death
of Copeman. Mr. Kisselle’s work as Copeman’s patent
attorney was vital to Copeman’s success. “If you have
spent money, time, and energy developing an idea that had merit,
don’t jeopardize your chances for success by employing a second-rate
or advertising firm of patent attorneys. They usually obtain a patent
but it is worthless.”(25)
The research done by
Kisselle’s firm for the latex patents alone cost $10,000,
but it was worth it to Copeman. Mr. Robert A. Choate, an associate
of Mr. Kisselle’s, recalled an incident where Copeman came
to Kisselle with an idea and asked Kisselle to do a novelty search
(to check if there was some other item like his already patented).
The novelty search came up indeed with another patent on the same
idea, only the patent had been granted to Copeman a number of years
earlier.(26) None of Copeman’s patents have ever been involved
in litigation, however, he did have some problems prior to his engagement
of Mr. Kisselle. To devious Philadelphia lawyers who were involved
with his patent on the surgical instrument sold the “rights”
to it three or four times without Copeman’s knowledge rendering
the patent which Copeman had paid for worthless.(27)
life was not without its paradoxes. Robert Choate describes Copeman
as a great outdoors man, hunter, and fisherman. Mr. Choate as well
as one newspaper account tell a vastly different story about how
Lloyd came across his rubber ice tray idea. These two accounts describe
Copeman as being on a fishing trip with some of his Detroit associates
in Canada. Upon rising one late-winter morning, Copeman found some
water had frozen on his wading boots. As he cracked the ice the
idea of rubber ice trays sprang to mind.(28) Whichever is the true
case (this account or the one usually given and also given by Copeman’s
daughter Betty), the result was the same fortunately for us.
For several years preceding
his death, Copeman had no inventions patented by the U. S. Patent
Office but did have several patents issued after his death to an
executor. In later years, his inventions dealt with the still practical
but more recreational items such as bird houses [Cope-Craft Product,
Flint, Michigan] bird feeders, beer coolers, clotheslines [Flex-O-Line],
and such.(29) Copeman was called a devoted family man and he had
a great respect for Michigan’s natural resources. Some have
labeled Copeman a genius, equating his creativity with that of Thomas
A. Edison, and upon study of Copeman’s inventive career, it
seems evident that this is a fair comparison, so that his obscurity
in view of the magnitude of his inventions is surprising.
1) Interview with Elizabeth
Jane (Betty) Copeman Gerlach, Farmers Creek, MI, 21 September, 1982.
2) Lloyd G. Copeman quoted
in J. Dee Ellis, Pioneer Families and History of Lapeer County,
Michigan (Lapeer, MI: By the author, 3034 W. Oregon Road, 1978),
3) Lapeer County Press,
3 April 1952.
4) Ibid.; Ellis, p. 106.
5) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
21 September 1982
6) Anita Clever, “Fifty
Years an Inventor,” Popular Mechanics (November 1954): 109.
7) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
21 September 1982; Ellis, p. 106
8) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
21 September 1982.
9) Clever, Popular Mechanics,
10) Kent L. Copeman,
Editor Historical Scrapbook of Hadley Township (Hadley, MI: Hadley
Friends of the Library, 1977, p. 58.
11) Lloyd G. Copeman,
Flint MI., 21 November 1913, personal letter to his father John
Wesley Copeman, Metamora, MI.
12) Flint Journal, 13
13) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
21 September 1982.
15) Clever, Popular Mechanics,
16) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
22 September 1982
17) Ellis, p. 106; Flint
Journal, 13 September 1953, Clever, Popular Mechanics p. 109.
18) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
21 September 1982.
20) U. S. Patent Office,
Index of Patents Issued from the U. S. patent Office, published
annually, 1921-1930 issues.
21) E. J. (Betty) Gerlach,
21 September 1982.
22) Lapeer County Press,
1935 exact date unknown.
23) Interview with Robert
A. Choate, Patent Attorney, Detroit, Michigan, 4 October 1982; Flint
Journal 13 September 1953; E. J. (Betty) Gerlach, 21 September 1982.
25) Lloyd G. Copeman
as quoted in the Lapeer County Press, 23 April 1953.
26) Robert A. Choate,
4 October 1982.
27) Lapeer County Press,
23 April 1953.
28) Robert A. Choate,
4 October 1982; Flint News, 15 May 1936.
29) U. S. Patent Office
Listing, published annually, 1930-1956.
[ ] = Editor’s