Lloyd Groff Copeman (December 28, 1881 – July 5, 1956)[1] was an American inventor who devised the first electric stove and the flexible rubber ice cube tray, among other products.[2] Copeman was raised by his Canadian parents, Caroline Estelle (née Groff) and John Wesley Copeman, on a farm in Hadley Township, Michigan which was later incorporated into Farmers Creek, Michigan, approximately 20 miles east of Flint, Michigan.[3] Copeman began his career as an apprentice at the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia.Following that, he worked for electric utilities companies in Philadelphia and Spokane, as well as Detroit Edison and Consumers Power where he learned about electrical, marine and mechanical engineering, as well as steam fittings.[4] His first successful patented inventions, patented in 1909, were an electrothermostatic heat regulator for more effective control of stove and toaster heating elements and a thermostat for high-tension power cables.Development of the idea took several years, but in 1912 the Copeman Electric Stove Company was formed in the city of Flint, Michigan to produce the Copeman Electric Stove (also marketed as the "fireless cooker").Westinghouse Electric Corporation bought the company in 1917, moved production to Mansfield, Ohio, and continued to develop and improve the stove.Electric toasters were a recent invention at that time - the first commercially successful version was patented in July 1909 - and the bread had to be turned manually once the first side had been toasted.During a shopping trip, Copeman's wife Hazel gave them the idea for a toaster which turned the bread without manual intervention, and in 1914 a patent for what Copeman called the Automatic Toaster was filed in Hazel's name.Five other toaster-related patents were granted to both Lloyd and Hazel during the same year.[6] The invention of the pop-up toaster in 1926 superseded Copeman's innovations, however.A company called Copeman Laboratories Company had been established in Flint, Michigan during the year 1918 to allow Copeman to dedicate his time to inventing, although he also spent a lot of time at his farm in Farmer's Creek, where he would lock himself in the basement - sometimes for up to a week, with his wife bringing him meals on a tray [7] - and develop new ideas and products.Examples of his work at this time, which met with varying success, included injecting chickens with solutions to make their meat taste like beef; pioneering experiments in the development of latex; the Copeman Lubri-Cap, grease-filled paper cups for lubricating wheel bearings (the patent for this product was bought for $178,000 by the Alemite Manufacturing Corporation, the same corporation that also owned the patent rights to the Zerk fitting); Flexo-Line travel clothes lines, which are still manufactured today;[8][9] a device to use dry ice to cool bottles of beer; self-extinguishing cigarettes; and a rust-reducing latex coating for motor vehicles.Copeman's most successful and remunerative invention, however, was the rubber ice cube tray.One day in 1928, while walking through some woods collecting sap for maple syrup, he noticed that slush and ice flaked off his rubber boots easily, rather than adhering to them.[10] Sales from this invention earned Copeman approximately $500,000, equivalent to $10 million today.1,644,988; October 11 1928 Sharp freezing container for mechanical refrigerators.1,656,422; January 17 Method and apparatus for accelerating setting of stone castings.1,710,406; April 23 Method and apparatus for forming and maintaining sanitation in ice cream cabinets or the like.1,789.587; January 20 Sharp freezing container for ice cream cabinets.1,807,587; June 2 Dispensing unit embodying mechanical refrigerator.1,818,673; August 11 Unit formed partially of fired ceramic material.1,912,827; June 6 Mold construction for reproduction of patterns in rubber.19,055; January 16 Storage and dispensing unit for frozen foods.1,952,422; March 27 Treating fruit or other growing vegetable matter.2,020,256; November 5 1936 No patents 1937 Protective coating and applying and removing.2,120,461; June 14 Protective coating and process of applying and removing.2,182,116; December 5 Coating knit articles and products thereof.2,295,891; September 15 Treating textile fabrics and the products thereof.117-155 1956 Copeman, Lloyd Groff deceased; Elizabeth Jane (Betty), Gerlach, executrix Portable beverage conditioning and dispensing apparatus.
