Shards of Indiana, Pennsylvania - A Second Look - by Jerry & Cleo Kudlac
Introduction
The Dugan/Diamond Glass Ware Company of Indiana, Pennsylvania ceased operation when it was destroyed by fire in 1931. Since then, the factory site was demolished, covered over and seemingly lost to history until a construction crew uncovered part of the factory glass dump in 1975. Harry A. Helman, his son Del, and George McMillian recovered glass fragments or shards with pressed glass patterns that were later identified and reported by William Heacock in the February 25, 1981 edition of the “Antique Trader”. The article was considered a “bombshell” to the carnival glass world - another carnival glass company was discovered and a number of carnival glass patterns could be attributed to that company.
It has been 32 years since the first shards were recovered and examined. Today, glass shards from the factory site would be between 75 to 115 years old. It seems like a good time to take a “Second Look” at more glass shards to see what other information might be discovered.
Before reporting on this second look at the shards, let’s take a historical look of the glass industry of that era to put the shards in perspective. The first glassmaking venture in America was in 1608, when the ship “Second Supply” brought the first glassmakers to Virginia Colony, Jamestown; but it was unsuccessful. By the 1800’s, there were a few companies in northeast US serving the local population with handmade blown tableware and green window glass. Glass production was a highly skilled craft business of about 30-50 employees. Most of the glass used at that time was still imported from Europe. The US factories were small and depended primarily on local wood and coal sources to fire their furnaces. There had been very little improvement in the glass process from the previous 3,000 plus years. Glass molds were made of carved wood or paste (clay) which were temporary and resulted in inconsistently shaped items. By the 1900s, the skilled-craft businesses were replaced by entrepreneur businesses with corporate structure competing for a place in the glass market with 100s to 1000s of employees.
The snap tool was developed between 1850 and 1860 which allowed easier handling of the hot molten glass. With corresponding developments in the iron industry, the iron mold was introduced for pressing glass. This increased production output with identical copies of each item and reduced the cost by allowing use of unskilled labor. In 1864 William Leighton developed an improved formula for soda/lime glass that had a lower melting point. The production of the soda/lime glass required less energy to melt glass and it had the brilliance about equal to that of lead glass which was popular at the time, but more expensive to produce.
The biggest improvement to the glass industry was the discovery of natural gas in western Pennsylvania. Glass factories were established in Pennsylvania to be close to the gas source. Use of gas and the development of the gas furnace replaced wood and coal with a 40-60% reduction in energy costs. As a result there was no contamination of coal pyrite and sulfur to discolor the glass, work areas were cleaner, glass was more brilliant and capacity again increased. A second local natural resource was glass sand, (Oriskany quartzite) in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In 1915, Pennsylvania produced 455,112 tons of glass sand, about one-fourth the total production of glass sand in the US.
About the same time, automatic bottle machines were developed to handle and form glass products. This caused the disappearance of child labor which accounted for about 20% of the labor force at that time. The high-paid skilled glassblowers had to seek employment in other industries when they were replaced by less-skilled workers.
The 1880s was considered the threshold of technological advances in the glass industry. By 1904 there were 399 glass firms located primarily in northeastern US. There were 340 firms with continuous tank furnaces, some with the capability up to 3,000 tons of molten glass. Most (296) of the factories produced plate and window glass while the others (102) produced pressed or blown glass.
Factories with continuous tank furnaces operated 24 hours a day with a continuous feed of raw materials producing a continuous flow of molten glass and products. They produced very large quantities of glass and quicker, but were limited to a single type of glass. Smaller factories used single batch furnaces that allowed them to produce a variety of glass and colors. With the increased demand for glass products, management could no longer depend on “secret handed-down” glass formulas that were unreliable and uneconomical for commercial production. It became a necessity to control the clarity of glass, the color, the melting temperature, purity of ingredients, the viscosity of the glass for gathering, pressing, and annealing by using tested and proven formulas for glass production; but according to a government survey in 1916, only 1 out of 20 glass companies had a glass chemist on staff.
Harry Bastow became associated with Harry Northwood in 1895, and succeeded him when Northwood turned over his formulas and left the Northwood plant at Indiana, PA. Bastow, a glass chemist, was involved in practically ever aspect of glass production with a number of glass firms and was involved bringing many innovations to general glass manufacturing. Early on, Thomas E.A. Dugan and Bastow worked closely together developing many of the glass formulas that were used at the National, Dugan and later the Diamond Glass Ware Company. Some of these basic formulas will be discussed in later articles on colored glass. Glass chemists working for other companies were Jacob Rosenthal (Fenton, 1906), Henry Fry, (Fry Glass Co., 1901) H.M. Hughes, and R.F. Brenner (1914), just to name a few.
During this time, the glass industry became very competitive. Each company produced various types of glass: leaded, etched, cut, opalescent, colored, iridized, etc., to establish its place in the market and meet the demand for glass products. Glass companies advertised in major catalogs and exhibited their products in large cites very much like the automotive, electronic and toy industries of today. The strategy was to showcase their products, make the sales and take orders back to the company for production.
From 1880-1920 the price of glass declined, products increased and quality greatly improved. By 1920, the US became a major exporter of glass. Carnival glass or iridized glass was introduced in 1907 and continued to be popular until the 1930s when a number of glass companies went out business during the economic depression and carnival glass was no longer in vogue.
This historical review of the glass industry is the background for a series of three articles to follow describing the recovered colored molten glass samples - about 65 different colors and types of glass. The last (fifth) article will cover approximately 85 identified patterns in various types of glass made at the Indiana, PA site from 1892-1931.
The next article continues with Transparent Colored Glass Samples - Part 1: Clear, amber and amethyst glass.