Everest and Jennings

Everest & Jennings was a manufacturer of mobility and adaptive equipment. Everest & Jennings was the first company to mass-produce wheelchairs.

Everest & Jennings logo on the back of a wheelchair.

Origins

Herbert A. Everest and Harry C. Jennings Sr. were friends, and both were engineers. Herbert Everest was also physically disabled after surviving a mining accident in 1918. Everest complained to Jennings about the bulk of chairs available in the early 1930s, and in 1933, the pair designed and built a lightweight, collapsible model in Jennings' garage.[1] The design was patented in October 1937.[2]

The pair soon went into business to manufacture their improved design. In the 1940s, they supplied disabled veterans of World War II through government contracts that established the company as a recognized name in rehabilitation equipment.[3][4][5]

The Everest family sold its interest in the company in 1943,[6] but Gerald Jennings, son of Harry Sr., was chief executive from 1952 until he retired in 1985.[7][8]

Photograph of First Lady Betty Ford Signing the Cast of a Television Crew Member, Following the Taping of the 1976... - NARA - 186827; the wheelchair's Everest & Jennings logo is visible under the armrest

By the early 1970s, Everest & Jennings International was "the world's largest supplier of wheelchairs."[9] But this status brought increased scrutiny.[10] In 1977, the United States Justice Department formally accused Everest & Jennings of practices that violated antitrust laws. The resulting settlement required Everest & Jennings to make annual compliance reports to the Justice Department; the settlement was called "little more than a slap on the wrist" by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.[11] Nader was also involved with protests about the quality, safety, and price of Everest & Jennings chairs, by a disability rights group.[12] A class action suit was brought by equipment dealers, but dismissed in court in 1984.[13]

Everest & Jennings recorded sales of $145 million in 1980, and profits near $8 million.[14] In the 1980s they launched "Avenues," an adaptive clothing line for wheelchair users.[15] Changes within the company and in the business landscape during the 1980s left Everest & Jennings struggling at decade's end.[16]

Later developments

In 1992, facing financial difficulties from lost market share,[17] Everest & Jennings moved from Camarillo, California to St. Louis, Missouri.[18] In 1993, the company acquired Medical Composite Technology, a carbon fiber technology company.[19]

In 1996, still struggling with debt and falling sales, Everest & Jennings announced the sale of the company to Graham-Field Health Products.[20] Graham-Field soon closed the Everett & Jennings plant in Earth City, Missouri.[21] Graham-Field continues to market wheelchairs under the Everest & Jennings name.[22]

Notable customers

Among the prominent early users of Everest & Jennings wheelchairs were Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sergeant Alvin C. York and Winston Churchill.[23] Ed Roberts and other members of the Rolling Quads used Everest & Jennings power chairs.[24] Author Joni Eareckson Tada once wrote, "If they ever made a statue of me, I would want my 300-pound Everest & Jennings power chair front and center."[25] Actor Christopher Reeve's first wheelchair after becoming quadriplegic in 1995 was made by Everest & Jennings.[26]

gollark: I really feel like dale would be cleaner if rewritten in osmarkslisp™.
gollark: They're very strongly correlated.
gollark: Wrong. GTech™ is self-causing.
gollark: Of course, I doubt SUSCorp™ has sufficient simulation ability for this to be a problem.
gollark: Maybe not when calculating rough approximations to apionic systems, but if you try and extrapolate forward by more than 22🐝 or so you'll get cascading errors.

References
  1. N. R. Kleinfield, "Wheelchair Manufacturer Target of Complaints" The Index-Journal (April 22, 1981): 12. via Newspapers.com
  2. Raymond V. Smith and John H. Leslie Jr. Rehabilitation Engineering (CRC Press 1990): 195-196. ISBN 9780849369513
  3. Richard I. Bourgeois-Doyle, George J. Klein: The Great Inventor (NRC Research Press 2004): 166-168. ISBN 9780660193229
  4. Geoffrey Reaume, Lyndhurst: Canada's First Rehabilitation Centre for People with Spinal Cord Injuries, 1945-1998 (McGill-Queens Press 2007): 49. ISBN 9780773576476
  5. M. Tremblay, "Going Back to Civvy Street: A Historical Account of the Impact of the Everest and Jennings Wheelchair for Canadian World War II Veterans with Spinal Cord Injury" Disability & Society 11(1996): 149-170.
  6. Everest Jennings Inc. vs. E. J. Manufacturing Co. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.·263 F.2d 254 (9th Cir. 1959).
  7. "Gerald M. Jennings, Wheelchair Maker" New York Times (November 8, 1989).
  8. "Gerald Jennings; Ran Wheelchair Firm" Los Angeles Times (November 8, 1989).
  9. "Obituaries: Harry C. Jennings Jr." Manhattan Mercury (July 13, 1976): 2. via Newspapers.com
  10. Jack Anderson and Les Whitten, "Yes, Virginia, There is a Justice Department" Daily Standard (December 26, 1977): 2. via Newspapers.com
  11. "Wheelchair Manufacturer Deal Blasted by Nader" The Pantagraph (May 29, 1978): 5. via Newspapers.com
  12. "Wheelchair Builders Rip Off the Disabled, Nader Group Says" The Independent Record (December 24, 1976): 15. via Newspapers.com
  13. "Wheelchair Maker Claim" Santa Cruz Sentinel (March 22, 1984): 20. via Newspapers.com
  14. N. R. Kleinfield, "Wheelchair Manufacturer Target of Complaints" The Index-Journal (April 22, 1981): 12. via Newspapers.com
  15. "'Avenues' Fashion Models are on Wheels, not Heels" Santa Cruz Sentinel (September 6, 1989): 38. via Newspapers.com
  16. James F. Peltz, "Wheelchair Maker Tries to Regain Profits" Los Angeles Times (April 3, 1990).
  17. Joseph P. Shapiro, No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement (Crown/Archetype 2011): 214-218. ISBN 9780307798329
  18. Larry Speer, "Wheelchair Company to Lay Off 450: Camarillo" Los Angeles Times (February 29, 1992).
  19. Guy Lasnier, "Bike Company Aims for Comeback" Santa Cruz Sentinel (May 22, 1994): 21. via Newspapers.com
  20. Lee Conrad, "Everest & Jennings CEO Getting $660,000 from Stock" St. Louis Business Journal (June 23, 1996).
  21. "Court Okays Everest & Jennings Plant Shutdown" St. Louis Business Journal (June 27, 2000).
  22. David J. Morrow, "Vehicles for Market Share; Wheelchair Makers are Trying to Expand their Turf" New York Times (January 21, 1998).
  23. James Bates, "Wheelchair Maker Looking For a Way Back to the Top" Los Angeles Times (March 3, 1987).
  24. Ben Mattlin, Miracle Boy Grows Up: How the Disability Rights Revolution Saved My Sanity (Skylight Publishing 2012): 36. ISBN 9781616087319
  25. Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Jensen, Barrier-Free Friendships: Bridging the Distance Between You and Friends with Disabilities (Zondervan Press 1997): 124. ISBN 9780310210078
  26. Rebecca Grilliot, "Remembering a Superhero" HomeCare Magazine 27(11)(November 2004): 82.
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