 | |
| Established | September 23, 1979 |
|---|---|
| Location | Glassboro, New Jersey |
| Type | Local history museum |
| Key holdings | Blenko glass |
| Website | www |
| | |
| Established | September 23, 1979 |
|---|---|
| Location | Glassboro, New Jersey |
| Type | Local history museum |
| Key holdings | Blenko glass |
| Website | www |
On September 23, 1979, the Heritage Glass Museum was founded as a 501c(3) non-profit organization. The current location is at 25 High Street in Glassboro, which is a former Glassboro Title & Trust Company bank building that failed in 1931 due to the Depression. In its last function before the museum was founded, it was the Glassboro Public Library from 1963 to 1979. The land was once part of the original Stanger Glass Works. [1]
The Museum has exhibits of historic glass, bottles and animal glass art figurines. It has an extensive library on glass blowing and education. It also loans out items for display at other museums and institutions of learning. [2]
The Heritage Glass Museum is a historical museum in Glassboro, New Jersey, United States. It records the glass making and glass art which started in Glassboro in 1779. The museum was founded in 1979 and its mission is to educate and preserve the heritage of glass manufacturing and glass blowing in South Jersey.
In 1779, members of the Stanger family, all glass blowers, left Alloway Township, New Jersey and the Wistar glassworks. [2] Soloman Stanger had found clay, quality sands and adequate Oak wood for the glass furnaces, along with a ready market across the river at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was near Carpenter’s Landing close to the narrow Mantua Creek. He purchased 200 acres of land there. The Stangers were German immigrants who had worked in Salem County, New Jersey and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania glass works and were ready to start their own business. [3]
Their timing due to the American Revolution was unfortunate because the Stanger Glass Works closed in late 1781 primarily due to inflation of the new American Revolutionary War money, high costs of transportation and being unable to pay off their debts. [2]
Colonels Thomas Heston and Thomas Carpenter purchased the glass blowing equipment in 1786. The Heston-Carpenter Glass Works became financially successful and upon the death of the partners was sold. Over time the once Stanger Glass works later became the Olive Works, the Temperanceville Glass Works, the Harmony Glass Works (by mid 1830), the Whitney Brothers Glass Works in 1838, the Owens Bottle Company by 1922, and finally the Owens Illinois Glass Company circa 1926. [2] [1]
The Whitney Brothers Glass work was bought in 1838 by Thomas Whitney the eldest son of Ebenezer Whitney who settled in Glassboro in 1805 due to an accident at sea. Over the next seventy five years the company flourished and at one point had over a thousand workers and thousands of acres of land. [1]
Glassboro was once the United States best equipped and extensive glass producing area of the country with the largest variety of colors and styles. [4] By the 1930s, plastics had begun to replace glass in the domestic markets. The age of mass production of glass and glass blowing was ending. [5] [1]
Glassboro is a borough within Gloucester County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, within the Philadelphia metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 23,149, its highest decennial count ever and an increase of 4,570 (+24.6%) from the 18,579 recorded at the 2010 census, which in turn had reflected a decline of 489 (−2.6%) from the 19,068 counted in the 2000 census. Much of the recent and projected growth in Glassboro have been attributed to the growth trajectory of Rowan University, founded in 1923 and formerly known as Glassboro State College. Glassboro and surrounding Gloucester County constitute part of South Jersey.
John Cadwalader was a commander of Pennsylvania troops during the American Revolutionary War and served under George Washington. He was with Washington at Valley Forge.
John Notman was a Scottish-born American architect and landscape architect based in Philadelphia. He designed buildings, cemeteries, churches and country estates in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and helped popularize Italianate architecture in the United States.
Libbey-Owens-Ford Company (LOF) was a producer of flat glass for the automotive and building products industries both for original equipment manufacturers and for replacement use. The company's headquarters and main factories were located in Toledo, Ohio, with large float glass plants in Rossford, Ohio, Laurinburg, North Carolina, Ottawa, Illinois, Shreveport, Louisiana, and Lathrop, California. The company was formed in 1930 by the merger of Libbey-Owens's sheet-glass operation with the Edward Ford Plate Glass Company, both located in Toledo.
John Mickle Whitall was a prominent US sea captain, businessman and philanthropist in New Jersey and Pennsylvania involved in the spice and silk trade, glass-making, and missionary work.
Michael Joseph Owens was an inventor of machines to automate the production of glass bottles.
Dominick Labino was an American internationally known scientist, inventor, artist and master craftsman in glass. Labino's art works in glass are in the permanent collections of more than 100 museums throughout the world. Labino held over 60 glass-oriented patents in the United States.
Carpenter's Landing was a mercantile settlement located at the head of sloop navigation on Mantua Creek in Mantua Township in Gloucester County, New Jersey.
Thomas Carpenter was an early American glassmaker and devout Quaker who, at significant spiritual and personal risk, found an important way to assist the American Revolutionary War, serving in the militia and the New Jersey Continental Line as what would today be called a logistics officer and earning the title of "Fighting Quaker." After the war, he contributed significantly to the rise of New Jersey glass production.
Thomas Preston Carpenter, was a lawyer and judge of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
The New Bedford Museum of Glass, located in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is home to a wide collection of glass ranging from ancient Mediterranean unguent bottles to designs by contemporary artists such as Dale Chihuly.
Centerton is an unincorporated community located within Pittsgrove Township in Salem County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. County Route 540 is a major road that travels through Centerton and passes Centerton Pond. Route 55 provides access to Centerton, via exit 45. Centerton is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Vineland in Cumberland County.
Mantua Creek is a tributary of the Delaware River in Mantua Township, Gloucester County, New Jersey. Mantua Creek's headwaters are near Glassboro, flowing northwest for 18.6 miles to the Delaware River at the Port of Paulsboro in Paulsboro across from present-day Philadelphia International Airport.
The Glassboro–Camden Line (GCL) is a planned 18-mile (29 km) diesel multiple unit (DMU) light rail system to be located in South Jersey.
J. H. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company was one of the largest and best-known manufacturers of glass in the United States during the 19th century. Its products were distributed worldwide. The company is responsible for one of the greatest innovations in American glassmaking—an improved formula for lime glass that enabled American glass manufacturers to produce high-quality glass at a lower cost. The firm also developed talented glassmakers that started glass factories in Ohio and Indiana.
The Wistarburg Glass Works was the first successful glass factory and joint-venture enterprise in the Thirteen Colonies. Caspar Wistar founded the glass works company in 1739. He began by recruiting experienced glass artisans from Europe, and built homes for the workers along with a mansion for the factory's foreman. Wistar also had a company store built near the factory.
Woodbury is a defunct commuter railroad station in the city of Woodbury, Gloucester County, New Jersey. Located at the junction of Station Road and Cooper Street, the station served multiple lines of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Trains out of Woodbury serviced lines to Salem, Millville, Penns Grove/Carneys Point and Cape May. Woodbury station consisted of two side platforms and a 72-by-20-foot brick station depot.
18th century glassmaking in the United States began before the country existed. During the previous century, several attempts were made to produce glass, but none were long-lived. By 1700, it is thought that little or no glass was being produced in the British colonies that would eventually become the United States. The first American glass factory operated with long–term success was started by Caspar Wistar in 1745—although two glass works in New Amsterdam that operated in the previous century deserve honorable mention. Wistar's glass works was located in the English colony known as the Province of New Jersey. In the southeastern portion of the Province of Pennsylvania, Henry Stiegel was the first American producer of high–quality glassware known as crystal. Stiegel's first glass works began in 1763, and his better quality glassmaking began in 1769. In the United States, the first use of coal as a fuel for glassmaking furnaces is believed to have started in 1794 at a short-lived factory on the Schuylkill River near Philadelphia. In 1797 Pittsburgh's O'Hara and Craig glass works was also powered by coal, and it contributed to the eventual establishment of Pittsburgh as a leading glassmaking center in the 19th century.
Very few 19th Century glassmaking innovations in the United States happened at the beginning of the century. Only ten glass manufacturers are thought to have been operating in 1800. High-quality glassware was imported from England, and glassmaking knowledge was kept secret. England controlled a key ingredient for producing high–quality glassware and kept its price high—making it difficult for American glass manufacturers to compete price-wise. European glassmakers with the knowledge to produce high–quality glassware were, in some cases, smuggled to the United States. Eventually the American glass industry grew, and the second half of the century saw numerous innovations.
19th century glassmaking in the United States started slowly with less than a dozen glass factories operating. Much of the nation's better quality glass was imported, and English glassmakers had a monopoly on major ingredients for high–quality glass such as good–quality sand and red lead. A tariff and the War of 1812 added to the difficulties of making crystal glass in America. After the war, English glassmakers began dumping low priced glassware in the United States, which caused some glass works to go out of business. A protective tariff and the ingenuity of Boston businessman Deming Jarves helped revive the domestic glass industry.