Paxton's Crystal Palace

As long as making sheets of glass was tied to human lung power and the ancient skills of the glass blower, it was impossible to make windows economic and large enough for the the average person or home.  By the 20th century, American techniques had begun to displace the glass blowers on a grand scale, but first...

In Europe as far back as the 17th century, molten glass was poured onto a "casting table" and pressed out by a roller between guides for even thickness in a sheet of glass.  After cooling for 10 days, the surface was ground down with smaller pieces of glass and polished with felt covered rollers.  It was possible to make glass sheets eight times larger than had ever been made before, but the problem was making casting tables that would not break or crack under extreme heat.  The process remained labor-intensive and the sheets produced too expensive for mass production. Hope came from an exhibition...

In 1851, Joseph Paxton, a gardener and horticulturist, stunned the world at the London Exhibition with his "house of glass."  Dubbed the "Crystal Palace", and described as "fairylike...where all the materials blended into the atmosphere,"  Paxton's was the first great building that was not made of solid masonry construction.  It gave a new prominence to glass.  His whole construction was designed around a four foot long sheet of glass.  The building on exhibition enclosed an area four times that of St. Peter's in Rome!  Paxton revealed that glass could erase the old barriers and reshape  building construction.

Next time...Bessemer's Process
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 16, 1919, Prohibition is ratified by the required number of states. Called one of the most outlandish periods in American history, the 18th amendment ushered in a period that prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of liquor for beverage purposes.  The amendment was repealed in 1933 by the 21st amendment.
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