Mergers, Consolidations...

How does Henry Ford figure in the history of glass?  Ford actually built a glass making machine which produced 51 inches wide ribbons of glass for automobiles continuously for 3 1/2 miles a day for two years - total length 2000 miles long! That earned him inclusion in the Owens-Libbey-Ford Glass Company which went on to develop curved glass for automobile windows. 

Meanwhile in Somerville, Massachusetts, Amory Houghton, a skilled glass maker began the Bay State Glass Company in 1851.  He was born in Boston in 1812 and as a young man dabbled in real estate, construction and trading before starting his own glass company. 

In 1854, Hougton organized the Union Glass Company, then sold it 10 years later to purchase the Brooklyn Flint Glass Works with his son, the glass chemist, Amory Jr.  After four years in Brooklyn, Houghton needed to reduce costs, and find better access to fuel and transportation so he picked up his company and moved it to Corning, New York, where he changed that sleepy town to the center of the glass industry.  Corning was instrumental in making electric light bulbs by inserting puffs of compressed air into the molten ribbon glass. 

After Joseph Owens' death in 1923 (Libbey died two year later), the Owens Bottle Company in Toledo, Ohio, became Illinois Glass Company in 1929.  Then in 1935, the company merged with Corning Glass Works to become Owens-Corning and the rest is history...Three major players  revolutionized the glass industry as we know it today - Edward Libbey, Michael Owens and Amory Corning.

Next time...How do you pack your lunch?
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 30, 1933, the Lone Ranger debuts on radio with the William Tell Overture as its introduction.  The program debuts on Detroit's WXYZ, created by George Trendle and written by Fran Striker.  The "masked man" became one of the most enduring heroes of the 20th century...Hi Yo Silver Away!


 

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. 

Ribbons of Glass

A new technology was needed to make glass affordable and in large enough quantities in America.  Henry Bessemer, of later steel fame, was experimenting with a process that would make glass into a continuous process rather than batch by batch or separate sheets.  He hoped to make glass into long broad ribbons of uniform thickness. But he needed several things...

One, a gas fired furnace as Bessemer needed, was slow in coming to America.  Wood was cheaper and the call for glass smaller in America.  About 1880 a method of drawing  a flat sheet of glass directly from the furnace was devised.  A sheet called a "bait" was dipped into molten glass and adhered to the glass.  Then the bait was drawn upward to pull the molten glass into a sheet.  However, once again it was difficult to keep the glass uniform in thickness or width.

By the end of the 19th century, Americans were actually beginning to take the lead in glass making innovations.  Bessemer was a part of this movement.  The canning industry, with the demand for glass jars was another.  Improvements also included Mason's screw top lid for glass jars which was patented in 1888.  With the improvements in heating and canning, the next step was the semi-automatic machine for making bottles.  This most important machine since the invention of glass blowing iron for making glass containers came from a an unexpected place...

Next time...A Kid in Toledo
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Today in Pioneer History: "On January 20, 1930, Charles Lindbergh flew an experimental glider into San Diego, California and became the 9th pilot in the United States to receive a glider's license.

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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The Story of Glass

In the century after the Civil War, the increased use of iron, steel and something not used before in the form and design of buildings was introduced - concrete.  Concrete was actually as old as the Romans, but its use in widespread masonry was not.  Along with new designs in buildings came new uses for glass, bringing the outside inside and the freedom of view.

The story of glass is goes back 1000s of years.  Glass is an ancient material, but transformed over the many centuries to what we use today.  The ancient Egyptians used glass for glazing beads, making imitation precious stones, and even for travel.  Glass-blown vessels were widely used on the Mediterranean before Jesus.

During the Middle Ages, glass became more useful in personal ways like fancy containers, chandeliers and mirrors.  Venice was the glass making center of Europe in the 13th century.  Glass makers' techniques were counted among the treasures of the city and guarded as secretive.  Venetian glass makers perfected a pure, colorless. transparent glass which after being made into fragile pieces were art objects in the finest palaces.

Glass, rather than a raw material, was treated as transparent silver.  The use of glass for windows was a slow, gradual change.  Glass was very expensive and flat glass was difficult to make. Only very small windows were made and for the wealthy.  In the Middle Ages, windows began to show beauty - the stained-glass windows of England and France's cathedrals, although with limitations, showed the power of the glass makers of that time. 

Next time...The making of colored glass
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Today in Pioneer History: "On December 12, 1980, a notebook belonging to Leonardo Di Vinci was purchased for $5.1 million by American oil tycoon Armand Hammer at auction.  The manuscript written around 1508, contained 72 pages with 300 notes and drawing relating to water and how it moved.  After Hammer's death and an museum visit, the codex was sold to Bill Gates for an estimated $30.8 million.  Gates loans the codex to museums for public display.  (what else would do with it???)