The Glass Industry in America

How New Glass Products Changed Life in America and Around the World

May 24, 2009 Cheryl Kraynak

Glassmaking businesses in America developed new processes and formulas that made glass a more available and durable product, propelling the industry into the future.

The early techniques for making glass products for daily use and for decorative art were developed in ancient lands, and as artisans became more skilled with their products, knowledge of the craft spread through Europe and Asia.

European glassmakers who joined New World immigrants after the colonists settled there would bring knowledge that businesses would refine and use to create newer, better glass products for America. This article expands on the history of the glass industry, as described in “The Rise of the Glass Industry: How Early Forms of Glass Were Turned Into Popular, Decorative Art.”

Sheet Glass Technique Spread to America

Glassmakers in the New World needed to keep up with the demand from colonists who required such things as glass window panes for their homes. England was unhappy with the idea that the settlers were self-sufficient, producing their own glass and not in need of importing it from abroad. The colonists made window panes in the way first developed by Red House Glassworks of Wordsley, England, at the end of the eighteenth century.

Red House had became famous for creating plain sheet glass using a coal-fired furnace. A mouth-blown cylinder would be blown, split, reheated and ironed, though it would contain bubbles. This is why early window panes are uneven and contained bubbles, as it was made of this glass. Today, Blenko Glass in Milton, West Virginia, duplicates this process so they may provide authentic restoration panes for such places as the White House and Colonial Williamsburg.

Pressed Glass Changes the Glass Industry

The first glass factory of note was established in the New World in 1739 by Caspar Wistar in New Jersey. Then German glassmakers formed more glass businesses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The most important development came in the 1820s, when companies in Sandwich, Massachusetts, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, began making pressed glass using mechanical pressure. This enabled an increase in production, leading to falling prices, and the creation of an assortment of new items like doorknobs and inkwells.

Twentieth Century Glassmaking Developments

Two developments in the early part of the 20th century changed glassmaking further. In 1922, Will Woods invented the ribbon machine while working for the Corning company in Wellsboro, PA. This machine automated the process for making lightbulbs. Corning also developed and marketed borosilicate glasses around this time. Glass with borax added made the products stronger and more heat resistant. Cooks who use Corning’s Pyrex glassware understand the convenience and practicality of such products.

Flat Glass Perfected by Floating on Tin

In 1952, England’s glassmaker Pilkington Brothers finally developed an ideal method for fabricating flat glass by floating it in a bath of molten tin. Companies around the world adopted this technique, which is still the way it is done in factories all over the globe to make windshields, mirrors, glass furniture and more.

In recent decades, scientists have developed specialty glasses for fiber optics, heat-reflecting tiles on spacecraft, advanced optics, medical and dental purposes, and nuclear waste containment. But whether used for simple vessels in common households, high-quality, fashionable items or advanced technological purposes, glass is one commodity that knows no boundaries by culture, class or income, and the industry will continue to flourish well into the future.

Sources:

• Ellis, William S.. Glass: From the First Mirror to Fiber Optics, the Story of the Substance That Changed the World. New York: Avon Books, Inc., 1998.
• “Glass.” The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., Vol. 5. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2007.

The copyright of the article The Glass Industry in America in International Trade is owned by Cheryl Kraynak. Permission to republish The Glass Industry in America in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Antique Bottles of Pressed Glass

Glass Lightbulb Made With Ribbon Machine

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