The Story behind
Dr. Glen H. Morey
and Glas-Col

A sudden fire burst out in the Commercial Solvents lab when a gas burner heating an oil bath ignited vapors from a shattered flask of acetone dropped several feet away. Dr. Morey was injured in that fire, and it convinced him lab workers needed a new method for heating flasks--one that would eliminate the hazard of open flame burners and electric heaters with exposed coils.

Working in their spare time, Dr. Morey and his wife Ruth developed a heating device with electric resistance wires woven into a fiberglass cloth shealth. The Moreys called their new invention a "heating mantle" because it could completely envelope a laboratory flask, just as the earth's mantle completely encloses the planet's core.

Dr. Morey tested the heating mantle rigorously. He poured highly flammable solvents directly on hot mantles while they were being used to distill liquids from glass flasks. After he was unable to start a fire under any of his own test conditions, he submitted the heating mantle to other research chemists for their evaluation. Test after test proved the heating mantle dependable and non-flammable.

On October 24, 1939, the first purchase order for the heating mantle was sent from the Columbia Chemical Division, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company of Barberton, Ohio. Two months later, on December 13, the Morey's formed Glas-Col Apparatus Company to manufacture their new product. At the time Dr. Morey believed demand for the heating mantle would be rather limited and estimated total market saturation at about 25 thousand units. Being a good glass blower, he decided to market glass fractionating columns to supplement the company product line. The name Glas-Col is short for glass columns.

But Glas-Col never manufactured a single glass column. Orders for heating mantles poured in. Not only did companies request mantles for spherical distillation flasks, but they also wanted mantles to accommodate glass beakers, steel beakers, funnels, evaporating dishes and many other common laboratory vessels. Some companies banished open flames entirely from their labs and bought heating mantles even for test tubes. Dr. Morey's original heating mantle design was issued patent #2231506 on February 11, 1941.

The significance of the Moreys' invention was nationally recognized in 1951 during the American Chemical Society's Diamond Jubilee. On that occasion the United States government issued a commemorative stamp which pictured the distinctive Glas-Col heating mantle covering the bottom of a flask attached to a laboratory distilling apparatus. The smoke billowing from the towers of a chemical process plant pictured on the stamp was in that era considered a sign of prosperity and economic vitality.

Although the ACS commemorative stamp remains a proud success symbol in the history of our first 40 years, we're equally proud of our humble beginnings in the back room of Dr. and Mrs. Morey's apartment. We believe our roots reinforce the uniquely American conviction that a good idea, backed with hard work and a desire to be the best, will prevail in the marketplace.

We at Glas-Col pledge to carry on our founders' original dedication to providing the most durable, safe, and reliable laboratory heating apparatus available.

Biography of Dr. Glen H. Morey

Born, Alma, Michigan, April 21, 1902
Died, Terre Haute, Indiana, December 21,1969

Wife, Ruth Kemp Morey
Son, John Gardner Morey

University of Chicago

B.S. Chemistry, 1929
M.S., 1930
Ph.D., 1932

Instructor in chemistry,
Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1930.

Instructor in chemistry,
University of Chicago, 1930-1932.

Headed chemistry exhibit development,
Century of Progress.Exposition in Chicago, 1932-1936.

Research chemist,
Phillips Petroleum Co., 1933-1936.

Research chemist,
Commercial Solvents Corp., 1936-1945.

President, Glas-Col Apparatus Co., 1945-1969.

Listed in Chemical Who's Who, 3rd Edition, 1951.

Listed in American Men of Science, 1944.

Honorary Doctor of Science,
Northern Michigan College, 1961.

Member, American Chemical Society.

Member, Sigma Xi.

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Fellow, American Institute of Chemists, 1969