Biography
Coleman was born in Chatham, New York in 1870. His parents moved the family to Labette County, Kansas in 1871, and in 1881 his father died. William then worked as a salesman.
While he was selling typewriters in Alabama he saw a lantern that used gasoline instead of kerosene. He then switched his sales to lanterns. He then began to craft his own lantern, which he marketed as the Coleman Arc Lamp. In 1901 Coleman married Fanny Sheldon and they moved to Wichita, Kansas. They had two children Sheldon Coleman and Clarence Coleman. The business was now called the Coleman Lamp and Stove Company. He was mayor of Wichita in 1923 and 1924.
Coleman died in 1957 from a heart attack. He is buried in Old Mission Mausoleum, Wichita, Kansas.
Read more about this topic: William Coffin Coleman
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)