The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1920-07-23
GLASS BOTTLES
HAVE HISTORY
They Began in This County With the
Early Settlers Of New England
at jamestown, vir-
ginta.
INDIANS CHANGE THEM
They Preferred Beads to Bottles So
Settlers Converted Plant with
Aid Of italian Glass
A. Blowers.

and canning companies, the demanC
flor bottles obviously is heavy. Ir
this day of summer beverages and
home brew, bottles play an Important
part in every day life, too. Some en-
Iterprising statistician has discovered
1.-THE following facts concerning bottles
/ Bottles, at some time or other, play
IAN important role in the lives Of most
lpeople. It frequently happens that
ia bottle is the first object seen and
|clutched by wee babies. Medicine
bottles, standing on little table are
often the last objects seen by people
'before embarking on their long jour.
lney.
! Between the milk bottle and the
medicine bottle there are sometimes
la wide range of bottles-both as to
size and contents.
| In the absorbing romance of Amer
lean business, it is an interesting fact
THAT the first industrial enterprise
started on the North American con-
ltinent was for the purpose of manu-
featuring glass bottles. This factory
was erected at jamestown, Virginia,
in the year 1908 1t was operated by
some glassblowers who were among
+ the early colonists who settled in the
| Old Dominion.
During the present turbulent recon
struction era, when much is being
jsaid and written about American
manufacturers going after foreign ex-
port trade, it is of more than passing
interest to recall that the products
of that little jamestown bottle fac
tory were the first articles ever eX-
ported from North America.
But Just when this new world in
dustry was getting nicely under way,
along came the famous Virginia to-
bacco boom, which soon became SO
popular that the glassblowing element
of the colonists decided they preferred
hoeing and smoking to blowing.
! From Bottles to Beads.
1t was not long thereafter, how
ever, that the Indians in and around
Virginia made it known that they
much preferred glass beads to bottles,
some of the progressive and far-seeing
Italian glass workers to cross the
ocean and convert the old bottle fac
tory into a bead plant.
n
|started bottle factory at Salem,
The town officials of
that period were evidently a hustling
aggregation on the lookout for the
development of their town. They inn
mediateIy boosted the new industry
by voting it loan Of thirty pounds.
The factory was not success, and
Salem is still whistling for it's thirty
pounds.
During the time the Dutch were
running things on Manhattan Island,
a bottle factory was built near Han
over Square.
In 1854, Dutch gentleman named
Bamber built glassworks in Brooklyn.
The first bottle blown by him, bear
ing the name and date, is now in the
collection of the Long Island Histori-
cal society.
Glassboro, N J., was founded by
colony of German glassmakers in
ITS.
But it was not until the close of the
Revolutionary war that glass making
became permanent industry in
America. 1887 the Massachusetts
legislature gave Boston glass COM
pany an exclusive franchise to make
glass in that state for fifteen years.
1t turned out to be the first successful
glass making plant in the United
States 1t is reasonably possible that
this was the first franchise ever
granted by legislative body Other
plants followed at short intervals. In
1865 this country had reached the
stage where it was making glass equal
to that of England
Glass bottles were first made at
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1896, and
that city is still an important glass
making center. ,.
Total Large.
There are now total, of 34S glass
manufacturing establishments in this
country The aggregate capital in
vested in these industries is $751;
100000. The value Of the total an
nual output is s2oO,000,000 at the fac
tories. To operate these great
plants requires the services of 10000
operatives. More than seventy per
cent of the glass manufactured in this
country is made in the four states of
Ohio, Indiana and West
Virginia.
People first commneced using bot
ties four thousand years before the
birth of Christ. The first bottles
mentioned in history were made of
the skins of animals, mostly goats.
These are the kind of bottles to which
reference is made in the Holy scrip
lures. Strange TO say, skin bottles
are used to this day in southern
Europe for carrying water and wine
Certain Asiatic and African tribes
also still use skin bottles for the
transportation of water. Many Ital-
ian peasants Of the present generation
used dried gourds as bottles
The ancient Egyptians were noted