American Glass
from the Glass
Encyclopedia

American Glass was first made in 1535 if we count Mexico as part of the Americas, and therefore producing American glass. In 1592 glass was also made in Argentina. But neither of these glassworks succeeded due to the small population and the lack of sufficient demand.

True American Glass dates back to 1608, when Virginia was the first English colony to start a glassworks, near Jamestown. The plate in the picture above left commemorates this first glassworks, and was made as a collectors' item by Fenton Art Glass in 1970. The Jamestown glassworks failed after only a year and so did the efforts to establish glassworks in Salem in 1641 and in Philadelphia in 1682.

The Dutch operated two glassworks in the 1650's in New York (New Amsterdam at the time). We know very little about the glass made in these early glassworks.

The demand for glass items increased until the 1730's when the first successful American glassworks was set up. This was at Wistarburgh, New Jersey, built in 1738 by Caspar Wistar. This American glassworks started producing bottles and window glass the next year, and they also made tableware, but it was not marked so it is hard to identify.

Another successful early American glassmaker was Henry W Stiegel, who set up three glassworks in Lancaster County, west of Philadelphia. He made bottles and window glass but also tried to compete with the imported luxury glass of that day. And the third early glassmaker was John F. Amelung, who bought a failed glassworks in Frederick County west of Baltimore around 1784 and called it the "New Bremmen Glass Manufactory".

All of these early American ventures were opposed strongly by the British, and after a few years they failed. It was not until the Revolutionary War in 1783 followed by the war with Britain in 1812 together with the trade embargo on British goods, that American glass manufacture really took off.

Between 1790 and 1820 some 63 glasshouses were set up. Protective tarrifs were introduced in 1824 and about half of this wave of glass-houses survived into the 1830's.