Nebraskan Victor Samuel Johnson began his professional life as a salesman for the Iowa Soap Company, out of Burlington, Iowa. At the age of 25, he formed the Western Lighting Company to market a German kerosene burner with a high quality white light that he had discovered during his travels as salesman. Wanting to market a complete lamp, he found a U.S. manufacturer for his improved kerosene mantle lamp burner. This complete lamp was marketed under the Aladdin trademark. A year later, in 1908, Johnson formed The Mantle Lamp Company of America, based in Chicago. During this first year, he marketed lamps with the German burner under the name Practicus, and his own Aladdin lamps.
    America in the early 20^th century was just beginning the transformation to an electrical society. Aladdin kerosene lamps, with their improved technology, brought high quality white light to farms and towns still beyond the reach of electrical wires. Johnson's lamps were used in trains, city lamps, and lighthouses. As late as World War II, the company was granted special permission to use copper in its kerosene lamps with the idea that these mantle lamps would reduce the need for electric wiring, saving the valuable metal for the war effort.
    From its founding in 1908, the company quickly began to prosper. Johnson hired top engineers to continually improve on his products and designs. Eventually, the company marketed lamps around the world. Targeting rural America, the company promoted the high quality kerosene lamp by claiming easy conversion to an electric lamp by using an Aladdin converter.