The drama of glass

CALIFORNIA

;RN

RY FACILITY

^1 L

DRAMA
GLASS

KATE FIELD

PUBLISHED BY THE

LIBBEY GLASS CO.

THE DRAMA OF GLASS was an
inspiration born in the brain of
Kate Field, as she watched the
busy workmen, who with trained
eyes and skillful hands, wrought
out the products of one of America's
great industries that found a tem-
porary home in the World's Fair
at Chicago.

It is an addition to the long list
of brilliant writings of this versatile
woman, whose literary labors have
made her memory so dear to the
thousands of Americans who have
found in them the reflection of her
own individuality.

\ The story of an art that is as old
as the building of the City of
Babylon, that formed a part in the
life of Egypt, that was interwoven
in the history of Rome, and that

1702001

gave a reputation to a nation, is
re-told by Miss Field.

From the beginning of the art,
wrapped in mystery and legend,
step by step her story has become
history. She has carried it as far
as the World's Fair, and it has de-
volved upon Mr. Thos. M. Willey
to complete what she so well begun.

AVE you ever thought
what a drama glass plays
in the history of the
world? It is a drama
even in the French acceptation of
the word, which infers not only
intense action, but death. Can
there be more intense action than
that of fire, and is not glass the
own child of fire and death ?

The origin of glass is lost in
myth and romance. Nobody knows
how it was born, but there are as
many traditions as there are cities
claiming to be Homer's birthplace.
Pliny says that the discovery of
Nglass was due to substituting cakes
of nitre for stones as supports for
cooking pots.

According to his story, certain
Phoenician merchants landed on
the .coast of Palestine and cooked
their food in pots supported on
cakes of nitre taken from their
cargo.

Great was the wonder of these
Phoenicians — the Yankees of an-
tiquity, the builders of Tyre and
Sidon, the inventors of the alpha-
bet— on beholding solid matter
changed to a strange fluid, which
voluntarily mingled with its nearest
neighbor, the sand, and made a
transparent material now called
glass.

This story is too pretty to spoil,
and those of us who prefer romance
to science will believe it, though
Menet the chemist posi-
tively declares that to
produce such a fluid
would require a heat
from 1800 to 2700 de-
grees Fahrenheit. Un-
der the circumstances
narrated by Pliny, such

a tremendously high temperature
was impossible. Science often
interferes with romance, and were
not truth better even than poetry,
science would be a nuisance in
literature.

An art that Hermes taught to
Egyptian chemists like good wine
needs no bush, yet on its brilliant
crest may be found the splendid
quarterings not only of Egypt, but
of Gaul, Rome, Byzantium, Venice,
Germany, Bohemia, Great Britain,
and last but not least the United
States.

He was a poor man, who, in
Seneca's day, had not his house
decorated with various de-
signs in glass ; while Scau-
rus, the Aedile, a superin-
tendent of public buildings
in ancient Rome, actually
4?uilt a theatre seating
forty thousand persons,
the second story of which
was made of
glass. That

masterpiece of ancient manufac-
ture, the Portland Vase, was taken
from the tomb of the Roman
Emperor Alexander Severus, and
should bear his name rather than
that of the Duchess of Portland,
who purchased it from the Bar-
berini family after it had stood
three hundred years in their famous
Roman gallery.

In the thirteenth century Venice
reigned supreme in glass making.
No one knows how long the City of
Doges might have monopolized
certain features of this art but for
a woman who could not keep a
secret from her lover. Marietta
was the daughter of Beroviero, one
of the most famous glass makers
of the fifteenth century. Many
were his receipts for producing
colored glass, and as he had faith
in his own flesh and blood he
confided these precious receipts to
his daughter. Alas, for poor
Beroviero! Marietta, after the
manner of women, loved a man,

one Giorgio, an artisan in her
father's. employ. History does not
tell, but I have no doubt that
Giorgio wheedled the secret out of
his sweetheart.

Once possessed of these receipts
he published and sold them for a
large sum, then turning on the man
he had betrayed he demanded
faithless Marietta in marriage.
Thus it came to pass that the
ignoble love of a weak woman for
a dishonorable man helped to
change the fortunes of Venice.
The world gained by the destruc-
tion of a monopoly, one more

proof of the poet's dictum
that " all partial evil is
universal good."

It was in the middle
of this same fifteenth cen-
tury that a number of
Venetian glass makers
were imprisoned in Lon-
don because they could
not pay the heavy fine
imposed by the Venetian
Council for plying their art in foreign
lands. " Let us work out our fine,''
pleaded these victims of prohibition.
Their prayer was warmly seconded
by England's king, whose interces-
sion was by no means disinterested.
Yielding to royal desire, Venice
freed these artisans, and thus glass
making was established in Great
Britain. Beyond the point of
reason all prohibitory laws fail
sooner or later. Go to the bottom
of slang, and as a rule you will
find it based on rugged truth.
When in the breezy vernacular of
this republic a human being is

credited with " sand" or is accused
of being entirely destitute of it, he
rises to high esteem or falls beneath
contempt. Possessing "sand " he
can command success; without it
he is a poor creature. For the
origin of this slang we turn to
glass making, the excellence of
which depends upon sand.

If Bohemia succeeded finally
in making clearer and whiter glass
than Venice, it was because Bo-
hemia produced better sand. When
the town of Murano furnished the
world with glass, its population
was thirty thousand. That number
has dwindled to four thousand.
Bohemian glass stood unrivaled
until England discovered flint or
lead glass; now, the world looks
to the United States for rich cut
glass, the highest artistic expres-
sion of modern glass.

Where does America begin its
evolution in glass? Before the
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
Rock. In 1608, within a mile of

the English settlement of James-
town, Virginia, a glass house was
built in the woods. Curiously
enough it was the first factory
built upon this continent. This
factory began with bottles, and
bottles were the first manufactured
articles that were exported from
North America.

In those early days glass beads
were in great demand. Indians
would sell their birthright for a
mess of them, so when the first
glass house fell to pieces, a
second took its place for the
purpose of supplying the In-
dians with beads.

A few years later common
glass was made in
Massachusetts. It
appears from the
records of the town

of Salem that the glass makers
could not have been very success-
ful, as that town loaned them thirty
pounds in money which was never
paid back.

During the time of the Dutch
occupation of Manhattan Island,
when New York was known as
New Amsterdam, a glass factory
was built near Hanover Square,
but not until after the Revolution
came and went did glass making
really take root in American soil.
In July, 1787, the Massachusetts
Legislature gave to a Boston glass
company the exclusive right to
make glass in that State for fifteen
years. This company prospered
and was the first successful glass
manufacturing company in the
United States. Then followed
others that were successful. As
early as 1865 there was manufac-
tured, in the vicinity of Boston,
glass that was the equal of the
best flint glass manufactured in
England. Two hundred and fifty

years from the time the first rough
bottles were exported from Vir-
ginia to England seems a long
time to us, but how short a time
'., it really is in the life of this
ancient art — this drama of glass.

18

FROM 1850 TO 189^
AN EVOLUTION IN GLASS

It is always interesting to trace
the history of a great industry.
Like the oak, it begins with a small
seed that hardly knows its own
mind, and is often more surprised
than the rest of the world at the
result of earnest effort. See what
apothecaries did for Italy. Me-
diaeval art and the Medicis go hand
in hand. The drama of glass in the
United States may have as signifi-
cant a mission, for it is singularly
true that James Jackson Jarves, son
of Deming Jarves, the pioneer glass
manufacturer of New England, was
almost the first American to give his
life to the study of
old masters and to

devote his fortune to collecting
their works. The Jarves gallery
now belongs to Yale University.

William L. Libbey was born in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and
became, in 1850, the confidential
clerk of Jarves & Commeraiss,
the greatest glass importers of
Boston, and whose glass factory
in South Boston was the forerunner
of the Libbey Works of the Colum-
bian Exposition. Having made a
fortune — the fortune his clever son
spent in art and bric-a-brac — Dem ing
Jarves sold his glass factory to his
trusted clerk in 1855, and for
twenty years this Massachusetts
industry gained strength and repu-
tation. But the trend of popula-
tion was westward.

Cheap fuel was necessary to suc-
cessful glass making. How could
New England coal compete with
natural gas ? So Ohio came to the
front. A few years ago Ohio's
natural gas became exhausted.
Without a day's disturbance petro-

leum succeeded gas, and better
glass was made than ever, because
oil produces a more even tempera-
ture. Verily " there is a soul of
goodness in things evil." From
Massachusetts to Ohio, from coal
to gas, from gas to petroleum,
what would be the next act in the
drama of American glass ? What,
indeed, but an act the scene of
which was laid in the grounds of
the World's Fair !

Believing fully in the westward
course of empire, Mr. Edward D.
Libbey had the inspiration that if
Chicago wanted the World's Fair,
Chicago would not only have it,
but would create such an exposi-
tion as had never been seen. So
before even the temporary organi-
zation was formed in Chicago the
Libbey Glass Company filed an
application for the exclusive right
to manufacture glass at the Colum-
bian Exposition.

The problem of erecting a build-
ing that should be architecturally

in keeping with the surroundings,
that should afford every possible
comfort to the thousands of daily
visitors and still be used as a manu-
factory, was not an easy matter.

Begun in October, 1892, the ad-
mirable building, put up in the
Midway Plaisance to show the pro-
cess of making glass, was finished
one week before May ist following.
On that bleak opening day thou-
sands of overshoes were stalled in
mud a foot deep before the Admin-
istration Building, and the owners
went home in some cases almost
barefooted.

But there was an expenditure of
$125,000 in an idea, and the in-
vestors had no reason to fear

weather or neglect. From the
opening to the closing of the big
front door two million people found
their way to this glass house, at
which no one threw stones. The
trouble was not to get people in,
but to keep them out. A mob
never benefits itself nor anybody
else. To reduce the attendance to
reasonable proportions a fee was
charged, applicable to the purchase
of some souvenir, made perhaps
before the buyer's very eyes. Why
was this glass house so popular ?
Because its exhibit displayed the
only art industry in actual opera-
tion within the Fair grounds.

All people like machinery in
motion, and the most curious people
on earth are Americans. They
want to know how things are made,
and, like children, are not content
until they have laid their hands on
whatever confronts them. " Please
do not touch " has no terrors for
them. In addition to this inborn
love of action, there is a fascination

about glass blowing and the fash-
ioning of shapeless matter piping
hot from the pot that appeals to
men and women of all sorts and
conditions. With eyes and mouths
wide open, thousands stood daily
around the circular factory watch-
ing a hundred skilled artisans at
work. They looked at the big
central furnace, in which sand,
oxide of lead, potash, saltpetre and
nitrate of soda underwent vitrifica-
tion ; they saw it taken out of the
pot a plastic mass, which, through
long, hollow iron tubes, was blown
and rolled and twisted and turned
into things of beauty. Here was a
champagne glass, there was a flower
bowl ; now came a decanter, fol-
lowed by a jewel basket. A few
minutes later jugs and goblets and
vases galore passed from the nim-
ble fingers of the artisans to the
annealing oven below.

All these creations entered the
oven as hot as they came from
the last manipulator, but gradually

26

cooled off to the temperature of the
atmosphere. Getting used to the
hardships of life requires twenty-
four hours, during which the trays
on which the glass stands are slow-
ly moved from the hot to the
temperate end of the oven. This
procession was an object lesson in
life as well as in glass. " Make
haste slowly or you'll defeat your-
self," was the burden of the song
those things of beauty sang to
themselves and to all who listened.

If American cut glass has grown
beyond compare, it is largely due to
the superior intelligence of Ameri-
can artisans. They have the "sand";
so, too, have the beautiful hills of
Berkshire County, Massachusetts,
whence comes the purest quality
the whole world has known. The
best flint glass exhibited at the
Paris Exposition of 1867 owed its
excellence to the treasure stowed
away in Western Massachusetts.

The finest Amer-
ican flint glass of

the Columbian Exposition found its
inspiration in the same part of the
old Bay State.

Little did those visitors to the
Fair know whence came the hot
fires of Libbey's Glass House.
They little knew that oil was drawn
in pipes from Ohio, and that one
hundred and fifty barrels of petro-
leum lay buried under innocent-
looking grass, that looked up and
asked not to be trodden under foot.

Of course, had lightning struck
those two great hidden tanks of
liquid dynamite, we should all
have been sent to that bourne
whence no World's Fair visitor
could have returned.

Seventy-five barrels of oil were
burned daily on the Midway Plai-
sance. How many gallons ? Three
thousand. Multiply one day's fire
by one hundred and eighty days
and you discover that the drama
of glass at the Fair was the death
of fifty-four thousand gallons of
petroleum.

28

THE ACTRESS

AND
THE INFANTA

Ever since the era of fairy tales
the world has heard of glass slip-
pers. Cinderella wore them and
great was the romance thereof.
But whoever before 1893 heard of
a glass dress, and who conceived
such a novel idea?

From that memorable day in
the Garden of Eden when Eve ate
that apple, which may literally be
called the fruit of all knowledge,
woman has been at the bottom of
everything; it was a women who
got it into her head that she
wanted a glass dress. How did it
happen? Thus: In the middle of
>May, 1893, women from all parts
of the earth took Chicago by
storm. Theirs was the first of one
hundred congresses, and among

many artists was Georgia Cayvan,
whose record on and off the stage
does credit to her head and heart.
Of course the clever actress visited
the Fair and of course she followed
the multitude and found herself
watching the process of making
American glass. It was not long
before Miss Cayvan's quick eye was
attracted by an exhibit of spun and
woven glass lamp shades.

" Do you mean to say those
shades are spun out of glass?"
she exclaimed; "the material re-
sembles silk."

"Nevertheless it is glass," re-
plied the attendant.

" Is it possible to make a glass
dress ? "

" Why not? It is not only pos-
sible but eminently feasible."
"Would it be very expen-
sive?"

"Twenty-five dollars a
yard."

This was a deal of
monev to invest in an ex-

peri men t, as at least twelve yards
are needed for a gown, but when a
woman wills she wills, especially
when she is intimately acquainted
with her own mind. Miss Cayvan
knows hers perfectly, and in a few
minutes she exacted from the Com-
pany a promise not only to spin her
many yards of glass cloth for a
white evening costume, but she
obtained from them the exclusive
right to wear glass cloth on the
stage. " It is agreed." said actress
and manufacturer in chorus, and
off hied the former to New York,
where at the end of four weeks she
received her material direct from
the Midway Plaisance. Ho\\ to
make it up was the next question,
for Madame la Modiste vowed she
wouldn't touch such material with
scissors and needles.

As a matter of fact a specialist
is ^needed to cut and sew glass,
which differs from other cloths in
breaking and wickedly sticking
into the hands, so a skillful and

33

artistic young woman employee
from Toledo was sent to New York
to do what the ordinary seamstress
could not. She cut and made the
unique costume with which Miss
Cayvan sweeps the stage to the
edification of feminine and the
wonder of masculine eyes.

The fame of that glass gown
reached the ears of the Infanta
Eulalia, who saw it worn by the
ingenious actress and determined
to inspect its counterpart set up in
a case at the World's Fair. The
Midway Plaisance was the Prin-
cess's favorite resort in Chicago,
and she soon turned her steps
toward the glass house she had
heard so much about. "Where's
that dress?" asked the Infanta as
she entered the factory. On being
conducted to it Eulalia expressed
great pleasure, declaring it was the
finest thing she had seen at the Fair.

"Would Your Highness wear such
a gown were one made expressly
for you ? " she was asked.

35

" Not only would I wear it, but
I'd take the greatest delight in
telling the story of its manufac-
ture," replied the Princess.

Before sailing away to Spain,
Eulalia wras fitted for her American
glass gown, now wears it, and to-
day there hangs in the Libbey
Glass Company's private office the
following official certificate :

ROYAL HOUSE OF H. R. H. INFANTE DON-
ANTONIO DE ORLEANS

H. R. H. Infante Antonio de Orleans appoints
Messrs. Libbey and Company of Toledo, Ohio,
cut-glass makers to his royal house, with the use
of his royal coat-of-arms for signs, bills and labels.
In fulfillment of the command of His Royal High-
ness I present this certificate, signed in Madrid,
July i sth, 1803.

PEDRO JOVER FOVAR

Superintendent of His Royal Highness's Household

Thus for the first time in the
history of an industry almost as
old as humanity, glass adorns alike
the person of a Royal Princess and
the person of a charming actress.
Produced at the Court of Spain
and on the American stage, am I
not justified in calling this memory
of a far and near past " The Drama
of Glass"? KATE FIELD

36

3E DRAMA OF GLASSN
BY

In every story told of the sights
worth seeing at the Columbian Ex-
position the factory of the Libbey
Glass Company, of Toledo, Ohio,
has had an important part. It was
more than a mere exhibit ; it was a
practical education in the art of
glass making, which, like an easy
lesson that follows step by step,
from the mixing of the crude ma-
terial to the completion of the
finest piece of cut glass,
impressed itself upon
the minds of hundreds
of thousands of visi-
tors.

Recall in your
memory your visit
to the World's Fair
in 1 893. Place your-

self upon the Midway Plaisance,
directly opposite the Woman's
Building. Does your mind pic-
ture a stately, beautiful building,
with central dome and graceful
towers ? This was the building of
the glass factory to whom the ex-
clusive right to manufacture and
sell its products was awarded over
many competitors by the Ways and
Means Committee of the World's
Columbian Exposition. This con-
cession was given because the plan
of the Libbey Glass Company was
a plan of broad ideas, fully meet-
ing the requirement that America
should show that the whole world
followed her in the manufacture of
cut glass.

How well that Company fulfilled
its mission is known to the two
million visitors who passed under
thedeep-recessed semicircular arch-
way, rich with sculptured ornament,
that covered the grand entrance to
this palace ; within, it was like a
theatre, where the scenes in the

40

beautiful drama of glass were ever
changing. Do you remember that
the sides, the dome, the ceiling,
were all glitter and sheen with the
products of this mystic art, and
that from thousands of cut-glass
pieces, as from brilliant diamonds,
sparkled the prismatic hues ?

Do you remember the roaring
furnace a hundred feet high, the
melting pots made of the clays of
the Old and the New Worlds,
mixed by the bare feet in order
that they have the requisite con-
sistency? The products of this
factory were born of fire. The
plastic molten mass that came from
the melting furnace, with its heat
of 2200 degrees Fahrenheit, was
thirty hours before a mixture called
by glass makers a "batch," whose
chief ingredient was sand from the
hills of Massachusetts.

Did you watch the workmen —
the "gatherer" and the "blower,"
with their long, hollow iron pipes ?
How the " blower," with his trained

fingers, gave an easy, constantly
swaying motion to the pipe, into
which he blew and expanded the
hot glass at its end ? The temper-
ing oven, through which all glass
productions must pass before they
will resist changes in temperature
or even stand transportation ? Did
you follow the process of cutting
glass ; see the wheels like grind-
stones, driven by steam power ?
Wheels of stone that come from
England and Scotland, and carry
with them the old-country names
of Yorkshire Flag, New Castle and
Craigleith, stones that are very
hard and close-grained, capable of
retaining a very sharp edge ?
Wheels of iron, which are used to
cut the design in the rough ; wheels
of wood, cork, felt, and revolving
brush wheels, used in finishing and
polishing ? Did you know that the
trained eye of the cutter and his
experience were the only guides he
had to secure the requisite depth
to his cutting ; that he must exer-

42

cise great care and judgment, else
the vibration of the glass renders
it extremely liable to break, and
that an intricate design requires
many days of constant manipula-
tion ?

Did you watch with interest the
making of glass cloth, see how the
thread of glass was drawn out and
wound on the big wheels that re-
volved hundreds of times a minute ?
How the glass thread was woven
with the silk thread, producing a
pliable glass cloth of soft sheen
and lustre, that could be folded,
pleated and handled in all ways
like cloth ?

Do you recall the Crystal Art
Room ? Did you realize that under
that ceiling, bedecked with ten
thousand dollars' worth of spun
glass cloth, was collected the finest
display of cut glass the world had
ever seen ? Do you remember an
old glass punch bowl, used in 1840
by Henry Clay, and that near this
relic of ancient glassware was an-

other punch bowl upon which five
hundred dollars' worth of labor
had been bestowed ?

Did you mark the difference, the
deep and brilliant cuttings, how
effective they were, how they
brought out the beauty and rich-
ness of the design ? Then, when
you examined the hundreds of
other articles, the sherbet and
punch glasses in Roman shapes,
the quaint decanters in Venetian
forms, the celery trays, flower
vases, and the ice-cream sets and
cut-glass dishes for every use, you
saw the clearness of the glass itself,
and that this deep and brilliant
cutting of perfect design, that
brought out the beauties of the

great punch bowl, was a marked
characteristic of the Libbey Cut
Glass. Did you not, as an Ameri-
can, feel proud of the progress that
your countrymen had made in this
old art of glass making ?

Since the World's Fair at
Chicago, two expositions of the
industries of this country, the San
Francisco Midwinter Fair and the
Atlanta Exposition, have added to
the honors and reputation of the
cut glass of the Libbey Company.
Certain trade-marks and names on
silver and china are always looked
upon with pleasure and with a
feeling that the possessor has the
genuine article.

The same thing applies to cut
glassware, so as a protection to the
public against those who would
profit by the reputation of others,
the Libbey Glass Company cut
their trade-mark— the name Libbey
with a sword under it — upon every
piece of glass they manufacture.

45

Half a century in the life of
America has added much to the
art upon whose brilliant crest, as
Miss Field has said, may be found
the splendid quarterings of Egypt,
Rome, Venice, Germany and Great
Britain, and today the United
States stands unrivaled in the
manufacture of cut glass.

The honor conferred upon the
Libbey Glass Company by the
committee, in granting to them
the exclusive concession to manu-
facture and sell American glass-
ware within the grounds of the
Exposition during the World's Fair,
was a great one.

The honors conferred by the San
Francisco and Atlanta Expositions
are but added proofs that the selec-
tion was a proper one. The Libbey
Glass Company thus stands to-day
to represent the best the United
States produces in cut glass, and
the best the United States produces
is the world's best.

46

Bartlett & Company

The Orr Press

New York

University of California

SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

Return this material to the library

from which it was borrowed.

. ' -•

A 000100861 4

3 1158 01273 2540

UNIVER

BEGIGNi