19th-Century American Glass

Glassmaking is America's first industry, with evidence of a glass workshop in operation in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608. Despite its early establishment, the nascent American glass industry concentrated primarily on window panes and utilitarian glassware during the 17th and 18th centuries due to the competition from England and continental European imports. In the early 19th century, market disruptions caused by the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and later the Tariff of 1824 boosted the American economy and contributed to the success of new centers of glass production, namely Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Boston.

A series of technological advancements increased the production and consumption of American-manufactured glass throughout the 19th century. While firms continued to use established techniques, such as free-blowing, mold-blowing, and cutting, the process of mechanically pressing molten glass into an iron mold—perfected by the New England Glass Company in 1825—revolutionized glass manufacturing. Until 1840, manufacturers relied on complex patterns resembling lace to disguise imperfections in the surfaces of pressed glass. Developments in the 1840s and 1850s, however, dramatically improved the quality of pressed glass and enabled glassmakers to create large objects with both plain and elaborately patterned surfaces. By the end of the century, manufacturers in the United States, increasingly located in the Midwest due to the proximity to natural resources and bourgeoning western markets, produced hundreds of complex pressed glass patterns for middle-class consumption.

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