Colburn's Window Glass Machine

The machine making of flat glass was complicated.  Owen's profits from the bottle making machine financed a plate glass industry.  In 1902 Libbey purchased the patents for manufacturing sheet glass from Irving Washington Colburn and then supported him in the perfecting process.

Colburn, from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, came from a textile manufacturing family.  While very young, he became interested in electricity.  At the age of 22, Colburn started the town's first electrical equipment supply and installed the city's first electric lights and telephone system.  When Colburn moved to Toledo, Ohio, he became interested in the manufacture of glass.

During the last years of his life he work on solving the problems of manufacturing sheet glass.  The Colburn Window Glass Machine was the first machine for drawing window glass continuously at any width. The Scientific American called it "remarkable" in 1908.  Colburn's machine used a set of rollers on the surface of the molten glass, one on each side of the sheet.  As the hot glass stretched, these cylinders kept the glass even and eliminated waves and blemishes. 

In 1916, Libbey-Owens Sheet Glass Company opened a new factory in Charleston, West Virginia which turned out hundreds of square yards of plate glass in a continuous flow, thanks to Colburn's machine.  It brought a new era to one of man's oldest materials and the means for opening the windows of the world (as well as those of American homes.)

Next time...Corning adds his two cents
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 27, 1888 the National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.  The 33 men who founded the society were diverse geographers, explorers, teachers, lawyers, cartographers, military officers, and financiers.  All shared an interest in geography and science.