Glass Production in Cincinnati: Bottles, Jars, and Insulators 1850-1910
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 3:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum
Steve Gordon, Administrator Emeritus, McGuffey House & Museum
Our April speaker will need no introduction! Steve Gordon is the Administrator Emeritus of the McGuffey House & Museum, and his long tenure in this position has made the museum the strong institution it is today.
Since his retirement, he has not been idle. For something completely different from his work at McGuffey, Steve is an expert on bottles, jars, and insulators from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
During the 19th and early 20th century, the Ohio Valley was a major producer of glass, especially domestic hollowares that included bottles, jars and insulators. Improvements in home food preservation containers, growing consumer demand and the development of telegraph and telephone lines facilitated growth of domestic glassware. Gray and Hemingray Co., founded in Cincinnati in 1848, became the nation’s largest manufacturer of glass insulators. With cheap access to natural glass in northwest Ohio and east central Indiana in the 1880s, glass production shifted to Muncie, Findlay and Toledo. This program will discuss the emergence of Muncie and the impact of Ball Brothers and Charles Boldt on the glass market. Numerous examples of canning jars, bottles and insulators will be displayed at the program.
