Items of the Week: Experimental Glass Blowing for Boys and The Drama of Glass

Art of Glass 2 is set to begin April 8! In honor of this amazing event we thought we'd feature two small books from our collection that offer two interesting approaches to glass from the turn of the last century:

Fun with Glass

Hey, kids! Glass can be educational and fun! Experimental Glass Blowing for Boys is a guide to glass science and “magic.” Published in 1909 by the A.C. Gilbert Company, the book outlines simple but useful scientific experiments such as bending glass into shapes and closing the end of glass tubing. The smaller projects build upon one another to create experiments in “magic” and practical jokes with glass. Frighten your friends by creating a glass spider web, or splash them with a home-made squirt bottle! Are you interested in engineering? Learn how to make an engineers level by using your newly honed glass-making skills. The steps are easy to follow, and the results seem just as magical today as they must have in 1909. For the modern reader Experimental Glass Blowing for Boys may lead to questions about the wisdom of letting children experiment with molten glass, or perhaps whether an Experimental Glass Blowing for Girls was ever published. Regardless of some dated attitudes, the steps are easy to follow, and the results would probably seem just as magical today as they must have in 1909 – just keep your home-made squirt bottles out of the library!

- by Sara Mason Library Assistant

The Drama of Glass

The Drama of Glass by Kate Field was published in 1890 and attempts to tell a sweeping story about the past, present and future of glass while at the same time advertising it's publisher the Libbey Glass Company The prologue begins with the speculations of the origins of glass by the Phoenicians and Venetians. It also depicts the beginnings of glass in America with a description telling “In 1608, within a mile of the English settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, a glass house was built in the woods. Curiously enough it was the first factory built upon this continent.” The next section of the book talks of the evolution of glass from 1850-1893 focusing not surprisingly- on Libbey Glass. The third section of the book dramatically departs from the history laid out so far to relate the fairytale of Cinderella’s glass slippers metaphorically to actress Georgia Cayvan’s journey to create a dress spun out of glass, which was also later duplicated by a Spanish princess. The fourth section returns to the Libbey Glass Company and their involvement in the World Fair of 1893. This section details the temperature of the furnace and the types of tools used to create their pieces. Asking the reader“Do you recall the Crystal Art Room?” section encourages the reader to reflect back on what they saw and learned about glass at the World Fair.

- by Kristen Banks, Volunteer