Bakewell, Benjamin (01 August 1767–19 February 1844), glass manufacturer, was born in Derby, England, the son of Joseph Bakewell and Sarah Woodhouse. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a haberdasher in Derby, and at the completion of his training in 1788 he went to London to work as a salesman in a mercer’s shop. Three years later he opened his own store, selling primarily French goods. That same year Bakewell married Anne White; they had four children. The French Revolution began in 1789 and interrupted the flow of goods, however, and Bakewell immigrated to the United States with his wife and family in 1794....
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Bakewell, Benjamin (1767-1844), glass manufacturer
Gerald W. R. Ward
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Ball, Frank Clayton (1857-1943), businessman and philanthropist
Dwight Hoover
Ball, Frank Clayton (24 November 1857–19 March 1943), businessman and philanthropist, was born at “Bascomb Farm” near Greensburg, Ohio, the son of Lucius Styles Ball, a farmer, and Maria Polly Bingham, a teacher. In 1868 the family moved to Canandaigua, New York, where Ball first attended Canandaigua Academy. In 1878 he moved to Buffalo, where he lived with his uncle, a Baptist minister, who had learned of an opportunity to construct fish kits (wooden boxes used by fishermen to hold their catch) out of lumber left over from making barrels. Ball and his brother Ed entered the business and had just begun production when the building burned down, causing them to lose everything. Ball then returned to Canandaigua for another term at the academy....
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Ball, George Alexander (05 November 1862–22 October 1955), glassmaker and railroad tycoon
Dale L. Flesher
Ball, George Alexander (05 November 1862–22 October 1955), glassmaker and railroad tycoon, was born on a farm near Greensburg, Trumbull County, Ohio, the son of Lucius Styles Ball, a farmer and inventor, and Maria Polly Bingham, a teacher. Young George attended the common schools and then Canandaigua Academy in upstate New York, an institution that was probably the equivalent of a modern junior college. In 1893 he married Frances E. Woodworth, with whom he would have one child....
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Carder, Frederick (1863-1963), glassmaker and founder and managing director of Steuben Glass Works in Corning, New York
Dwight P. Lanmon
Carder, Frederick (18 September 1863–10 December 1963), glassmaker and founder and managing director of Steuben Glass Works in Corning, New York, was born in Brockmoor, Kingswinford, Staffordshire, England, the son of Caleb Carder and Ann Wadelin. Caleb Carder’s father owned Leys Pottery in Brierley Hill, Staffordshire, and bequeathed it to his two brothers. Frederick Carder was attracted to art, particularly drawing and sculpting, at an early age. He quit school at the age of fourteen to work in the pottery, where he was assigned menial tasks. Quickly realizing his mistake, he determined to leave the pottery and began taking night school classes at the Stourbridge School of Art and at the Dudley Mechanics Institute. A visit in 1878 to the studio of the glass carver and decorator John Northwood, where he saw Northwood’s glass copy of the Roman cameo glass “Portland Vase,” attracted him to work in glass....
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Craig, Isaac (1742-1826), American revolutionary officer and Pittsburgh business and civic leader
William Weisberger
Craig, Isaac (1742–14 June 1826), American revolutionary officer and Pittsburgh business and civic leader, was born in Hillsborough, Ireland, to parents whose names and occupations are not known. He came to Philadelphia in late 1765 and worked in that city for about ten years as a master carpenter and builder. He became a patriot and in November 1775 was appointed as a first lieutenant in the first company of marines. That year Craig served on the ...
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Houghton, Alanson Bigelow (1863-1941), congressman, diplomat, and manufacturer
Ernest C. Bolt
Houghton, Alanson Bigelow (10 October 1863–16 September 1941), congressman, diplomat, and manufacturer, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Amory Houghton, a glass manufacturer, and Ellen Ann Bigelow. After operating a glass factory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his grandfather, Amory Houghton, Sr., and his father operated the Brooklyn Flint Glass Company in New York (1864–1868). The company’s operations were then transferred to Corning, New York, and the company was renamed Corning Flint Glass Company; it was incorporated as the Corning Glass Works in 1875. After early education in Corning and St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, Alanson Houghton graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in 1886. He undertook graduate study at the Universities of Göttingen, Berlin, and Paris, with a focus on political economy. Before 1890 he also published articles on Italian finance in the ...
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Houghton, Alanson Bigelow (1863-1941)
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Alanson B. Houghton. c. 1922. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-99334).
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Houghton, Amory (1899-1981), business executive
Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Houghton, Amory (27 July 1899–21 February 1981), business executive, was born in Corning, New York, the son of Alanson Bigelow Houghton, a glassworks manager, and Adelaide Louise Wellington. After he graduated from Harvard University in 1921, Houghton married Laura DeKay Richardson of Providence, Rhode Island, with whom he had five children. In the year of his marriage, Houghton became a fourth-generation glassmaker, joining the staff of his family’s firm, Corning Glass Works....
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Houghton, Arthur Amory, Jr. (1906-1990), glassworks company executive
Robert E. Ankli
Houghton, Arthur Amory, Jr. (12 December 1906–03 April 1990), glassworks company executive, was born in Corning, New York, the son of Arthur Amory Houghton, a and Mabel Hollister. Houghton attended St. Paul’s School (1920–1925) and graduated from Harvard University in 1929. He was married four times and had three children. Houghton married his first wife, Jane Olmstead, in 1929. He married Ellen Crenshaw in 1939. His third wife was Elizabeth Douglass McCall, whom he married in 1944. These three marriages ended in divorce. He died in Venice, Florida, survived by Nina Rodale, whom he had married in 1973....
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Libbey, Edward Drummond (1854-1925), business executive in the glass industry
Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Libbey, Edward Drummond (17 April 1854–13 November 1925), business executive in the glass industry, was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the son of William L. Libbey, a glass manufacturer, and Julia M. Miller. He was educated in Boston and attended lectures at Boston University. Libbey spent his early career in eastern Massachusetts, a nineteenth-century glass-manufacturing center, where he learned the business of glassmaking from his father. The senior Libbey’s experience included executive positions with several Boston-area glass importers and manufacturers, including Jarvis and Commeraiss, the Old England Glass Company, and the New England Glass Company. In 1874 Libbey joined his father in the management of the New England Glass Company, taking charge of the firm at his father’s death in 1883. Libbey inherited a shaky firm, and his attempts to put the company on solid footing with innovative product lines, including Amberina, failed in the light of changing consumer tastes and tough competition from factories in the growing western glassmaking center of Pittsburgh....
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Mason, John Landis (1832-1902), tinsmith and inventor of glass jars
Dale L. Flesher
Mason, John Landis (1832–26 February 1902), tinsmith and inventor of glass jars, was born in Vineland, New Jersey, the son of a Scottish farmer whose name is not known. While still a young man, he moved to New York City where he worked as a tinsmith in his own shop on Canal Street. It was in the rented room where he lived, at 154 West Nineteenth Street, that he had the idea of a glass jar to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables....
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O’Hara, James (?1752–16 December 1819), revolutionary war officer, businessman, and manufacturer
William Weisberger
O’Hara, James (?1752–16 December 1819), revolutionary war officer, businessman, and manufacturer, was born in County Mayo, Ireland, the son of Major John O’Hara. (His mother’s name is not known.) The young O’Hara left Ireland in 1765 to attend the Jesuit College of St. Sulpice in Paris. In 1770 he briefly served in the Regiment of the British Coldstream Guards. The next year he resigned the ensign’s commission granted to him by his relative, Lord Tyrawley, and briefly worked in a ship broker’s office in Liverpool, acquiring business skills....
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Owens, Michael Joseph (1859-1923), inventor and glass manufacturer
Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Owens, Michael Joseph (01 January 1859–27 December 1923), inventor and glass manufacturer, was born in Mason County, West Virginia, the son of Irish immigrants John Owens, a coal miner, and Mary Chapman. Although impoverished and little-educated, Owens was blessed with a talent for tinkering that matured into a tremendous mechanical ability. After leaving school at the age of ten, Owens moved from his rural birthplace to Wheeling, West Virginia, a bustling manufacturing center on the National Road that boasted several glass factories. There he secured an apprenticeship with J. H. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company, one of the nation’s leading manufacturers of consumer glassware, and by age fifteen he had mastered the craft of glassblowing—a task that he would later revolutionize with his inventions....
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Stiegel, Henry William (1729-1785), glassmaker and iron founder
Gerald W. R. Ward
Stiegel, Henry William (13 May 1729–10 January 1785), glassmaker and iron founder, was born in Cologne, Germany, the son of John Frederick Stiegel and Dorothea Elizabeth (maiden name unknown). After the death of his father, Stiegel came to America with his mother and a younger brother, arriving on 31 August 1750 in Philadelphia. Stiegel married Elizabeth Huber in 1752. She was the daughter of Jacob Huber, owner of the Elizabeth Furnace in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, one of the most significant and long-standing iron foundries in eighteenth-century America. Stiegel apparently learned the ironmaking trade from his father-in-law and took over management of the operation in 1757. Henry and Elizabeth had two children before her death in February 1758. He married Elizabeth Hölz in October 1758; they had one child....
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Wistar, Caspar (1696-1752), merchant and glass manufacturer
Gerald W. R. Ward
Wistar, Caspar (03 February 1696–21 March 1752), merchant and glass manufacturer, was born in Wald-Hilspach, Germany, the son of Anna Catharina and Hans or Johannes Caspar Wüstar. His father was the huntsman or forester to Carl Theodore, the elector of the Palatinate. Although he served as an apprentice in his father’s trade for four years and worked in the forests for an additional two years, Wistar was drawn to the New World. He set off from Heidelberg to get to Rotterdam, and there he embarked for Philadelphia. He landed in Philadelphia in September 1717....
