American Glass
White Glass Works (Zanesville, Ohio), Bottle. Glass, blown and mold-patterned, about 1815–35. Study Gallery
Glassmaking was the American colonies’ first manufacturing industry. It began in 1608, the year after the first English colonists arrived in Virginia, when a glasshouse was built near Jamestown. Little is known of this first attempt to make glass, which ended in 1610. Glass production picked up again after the Revolutionary War ended British rule in 1783, when entrepreneurs like Frederick Amelung (1741–1798) emigrated from Europe and set up glasshouses.
By the 19th century, glass production in America was an ever-expanding and constantly innovative industry. In the mid-1800s the glass industry began to specialize in the production of single forms, such as lamps, jars for preserving food, or pharmaceutical or perfume containers. Tablewares and accessories were ornamented with an increasingly sophisticated array of techniques—many of them machine-aided.