Early American Pressed Glass

Early American households could not afford the beautiful cut glass of France and Belgium, so American ingenuity developed a process to make representations of the European classic glass. The process of pressing a design into glass, and doing it quickly and efficiently, developed into a strictly American glass enterprise. The glass was inexpensive and artistically accepted by the public.

The art of pressing glass into molds was known to ancient Egyptians, but Americans began experimenting successfully with machinery for the process in the late 1820s. Quantity production began around 1840 and lasted until about 1880. It was a very competitive business, and factories sprang up here and there in many states. There was a lot of plagiarizing between companies which accounts for the many variants in popular patterns.

The real creativity and truly artistic value of this pressed glass, particularly the sauce dish (sometimes called "nappy"), is expressed in the tremendous number of designs that ensued once the process developed. Every event, holiday, or cherished value seemed to find expression in the different glass designs. Many patterns were influenced by historical happenings both national and local, and existing or emerging tastes in art or fashion.

There were many glass companies in Ohio in the 19th and 20th centuries. And there are many glass museums today that attest to the variety and profusion of pattern glass; Libby Glass Museum, Toledo, Carmel Glass Museum, Vogel Glass Museum, Plymouth, Bennets' Cambridge Glass Museum, Imperial Glass Museum, Bellaine, Dogen Hart Museum, and Heisey Glass Museum, Newark.