BLOWN GLASS

The American and European eclipse of blown glass as an art, while never quite total, seems to have lasted over half a century. The passing of its shadow is said to have been started by French glassmaker, Emile Galle and to have been completed in early 20th century, almost one hundred years after glassmaking became a firmly rooted industry in the United State. Important as that entire period is, with is marvelous experiments and fascinating developments in the commercial table and ornamental blown glass produced in our factories

Even before 1830 the "sprit of commercial exploitation," which Trope points out, led English manufactures to copy the blown glass of France and Germany, had motivated the glassmakers in the United States, but it was reined in somewhat by the depression of the late thirties. After that it ran wild. The continuously broadening base of consumption created a demand for and made profitable a tremendous expansion in the variety of blown glass articles and wares.

Between the cut and engraved crystal glass, still and always the luxury ware, and the rapidly expanding varieties of the pressed glass for majority, there was a widening swath of fancy blown glass, many completely imitative of foreign blown glass and many the results of scientific experiment. It was this blown glass, which struck the keynote for the reminder of the century. And perhaps it was true of our blown glass in general that, as New York State's agent to the London Crystal Palace in 1851 reported regarding the American exhibits as a whole, "the character of our articles was such as to show the world that we worked for great masses, not for luxurious and privileged few.