Books on American Glass
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Books on American Glass |
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If you are looking for American glass you can usually find items on offer on ebay. - click here to see the current listings for American glass offered on ebay. Index to pages on other kinds of glass American glass books Art Deco books Art nouveau books Bottles books British Glass books Candy Container books Carnival Glass books Contemporary glass books Cookie Jar books Cut glass books Czech glass books Depression glass bks Drinking glass books European Glass bks Fenton Glass Books Fostoria Glass Books French glass books Gene Florence books General glass books Glass-making/working Heisey glass books Italian Glass books Marbles books Milk Glass books Paperweight books Scandinavian glass Stained glass books Stemware books The first glass made in the Americas was in Mexico in 1535 and in 1592 in Argentina. Neither of these glass- works succeeded due to the small population and lack of demand. Virginia was the first English colony to start a glassworks, in 1608 near Jamestown. This also failed after a year and so did the efforts to establish glassworks in Salem in 1641 and in Philadelphia in 1682. The Dutch operated 2 glassworks in the 1650's in New York (New Amsterdam at the time). We know very little about the glass made in these early works. The demand for glass items increased until in the 1730's the first successful glassworks were set up. In 1738 Caspar Wistar built his glassworks at Wistarburgh, New Jersey and started producing bottles and window glass the next year. They also made tableware, but it is not marked so is hard to identify. Another successful glassmaker was Henry W Stiegel, who set up three glass- works in Lancaster County, west of Philadelphia. He made bottles and window glass but also tried to compete with the imported luxury glass. And the third early glassmaker was John F. Amelung, who bought a glassworks in Frederick County west of Baltimore around 1784 and called it the "New Bremmen Glass- Manufactory". However, all these early ventures, opposed strongly by the British, eventually failed. And it was not until the Revolutionary War in 1783 and the war with Britain in 1812 and a trade embargo on British goods, that American glass man- ufacture really took off. Between 1790 and 1820 some 63 glass- houses were set up. Protective tarrifs were introduced in 1824 and about half of this wave of glass houses survived into the 1830's. In the first half of the 19th century the pop- ulation of America went from 5 million to 23 million, and the market for glass items increased hugely. To meet this demand the glass-makers invented methods of speeding up manufacture, and mold-blown glassware became very popular. About the middle of the 19th century the supplies of cheap fuel dried up in Eastern America, and to there glassworks switched to luxury, cut, lead crystal glass so they could more easily pass on the higher costs of manufacture. There followed several phases of popularity for cut glass (the "Brilliant" period) and this gave way eventually to the Victorian vogue for colored glass and to the turn of the century "Art Nouveau" style. |
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