South Jersey glass,
glass made at
American factories in
southern New Jersey, New England, and New York state from about
1781 to about 1870, following the example of Caspar
Wistar. Though Wistar's
factory had closed in 1780, it had provided the impetus for
the "South Jersey tradition." The workmen were descendants of
Wistar's own German and Polish workers or new immigrants from
Europe, and their style had its roots in the glass made for
centuries in central Europe. Tableware, such as jugs and sugar
bowls, was made in bottle and window glass, these latter being
the staple products of most factories. The use of this glass
dictated the range of natural colours: green and amber for bottle
glass and aquamarine for window glass, though other colours
were sometimes added. Decoration was of a kind long established
in European glass: applied blobs of glass, variously fashioned,
and "threads" of molten glass drawn around and around the vessel.
Another technique, with no European ancestry and peculiar to
South Jersey, was the
"lily pad" ornament, in
which an extra coating of molten glass was given to the bottom
of the vessel and worked with a tool into a series of points
up its sides, giving an effect that was at once artless and
controlled. The best period of South Jersey was between 1820
and 1850; after that, the increasing mechanization of the American
glass industry and other factors caused a decline in individual
glassblowing.
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Related Propaedia Topics:
Manufacture of conventional and special types of glass and glass products