Craft survival in the glass industry of Southern New Jersey: the metal of tradition
Date
1992
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the history of glassmaking traditions in Southern New Jersey. Particularly, attention is given to the persistence of craftsmen who used handcraft skills to make glass after industrial factories became mechanized in the nineteenth century. Special focus is devoted to the personal accounts of trained craftsmen whose experience reflects the factors that shaped traditions and provided for their survival. ☐ Historically, craftsmanship is a unifying factor linking the phases of change and development in the glass industry of Southern New Jersey. Initially, immigrant glassworkers from Europe established glassmaking practices that remained essentially unchanged by the generations of craftsmen who worked between 1739 and the middle of the nineteenth century. Technological advances introduced to glass factories throughout the nineteenth century changed manufacturing techniques, and altered the traditional community relationships that had grown out of occupational ties. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the last generations of factory-trained "Old timers" recognized that industrial opportunities for trained craftsmen had diminished to the point of extinction. These "Old-timers" resisted exclusion from the craft by establishing their own factories for the production of specialty glassware. This precedent was followed by craftsmen without factory training who created enterprises that returned to craft work as the means of factory production. Presently, echoing past history, handcraft skills have been the basis for the development of modern "borosilica" glass manufacturing. Although the techniques and materials of borosilica glass differ from those used in early glass manufacturing , the tradition of craft achievement and creativity has continued. ☐ The nature of glassmaking traditions is revealed in the history of change in industrial production and the response to those changes by Southern New Jersey glassmakers. Handcraft had been the root of the first industrial successes in glassmaking and played a key role in determining the personal identity and community organization of the men who made the glass and their relationship to the wider community. Yet, when the techniques of production shifted from hand skills to machinery, the force of tradition compelled glassmakers to continue working together to manufacture glass, exploit the creativity of their technical skills, and maintain the continuity of learning from one generation to another.