Location:
- Jeannette, Pennsylvania [Chambers Ave; close to
Pennsylvania Railroad's main line]
History:
- 1887 -
Western Land and Improvement Company's
application for charter approved by state of Pennsylvania. Company
directors: James A. Chambers, H. Sellers McKee, J. Gardner Cassatt,
Horace Magee, and B. Maurice Gaskill. Town named after McKee's
wife.
- 1888 -
Jeannette Bottle Works (the "fizzle";
many ownership changes)
- 1898 -
Succeeded by Jeannette Glass Company,
incorporated June 14; Original officers: Joseph W. Stoner (president)
and W. A. Huff (secretary); S. R. Hall as plant manager. Took over
Bottle Works' product line: bottles for drugs, soft drinks, liquors,
and food containers, all made by hand.
- 1899 -
O'Neill semi-automatic bottle blowing machine introduced
[variation on Owens' machine]
- ···· -
Jeannette turns to wide-mouth jars
(pickles, olives, relishes, mayonnaise); S. R. Hall resigns
and is replaced by A. W. Crownover.
- ···· -
Other products: automobile headlamp
lenses, vault lights, glass building blocks, and numerous pressed
wares. Also solicited private mold work.
- 1904 -
George M. Davis president; products
include prescription bottles, bottles for drugs, sodas, mineral oil,
wine, brandy, flasks, patent medicines, milks, and other jars for
preserves, etc.
- 1917 -
American 3-Way Luxfer Prism Co. buys controlling interest to ensure prism glass supply; Isaac Ambler
new plant manager; entire plant production turns to pressed ware.
- 1920 -
Plant improvements and additions; new
packing facility.
- 1924 -
Isaac Ambler, R.I.P. New plant manager
Carl T. Sloan; increases number of items made on automatic machines
and develops new hand-made pressed tableware line. C. P. Mills and
C. H. Paschall (owning controlling stock in American 3-Way Luxfer
Prism Co.) take active management role
- 1926 -
Mills and Paschall dispose of American
3-Way Luxfer Prism Co interests but retain control of Jeannette
- 1930 -
Peak capacity, 5 continuous tanks
- 1933 -
4 continuous tanks
- 1935 -
Reorganized as publicly owned corporation
- 1936 -
Common stock listed on American Stock
Exchange
- 1941 -
3 continuous tanks
- 1944 -
Low capacity point, only 2 continuous tanks
- 1945 -
Post-war capacity doubles, back to 5 tanks
- 1960 -
Maurice L. Stonehill, new president and chairman of the board.
- 1961 -
Bought McKee Glass Division of Thatcher
Glass Manufacturing Company; new technical glassware department
- 1963 -
World's largest electric glass furnace
for melting heat-resisting glass
- 1970 -
Name change to Jeannette Corporation
- 1983 -
Shut down
Notes:
- Known mostly for kitchenware and tableware,
including depression glass patterns "Iris and Herringbone" and
"Poinsettia".
- Trademarks: J in square, J in triangle,
J in bowl of goblet
- ''The Jeannette Glass Company began production
in 1898. In its early days they made such items as "vault lights,
prism tile, packers' ware, and novelties"''.
[The Wayback Times - Crazy for Cornflower]
- "began as a bottle plant...at the turn of the
century" and "In 1961 they bought and moved to the old McKee factory
and continues today."
[Manufacturing History (Glass Factories)]
- Same source also says FYI "Popular Patterns:
Adam, Cubist, Floral, Doric, Cherry Blossom, Windsor, Sierra,
Swirl, Holiday, Iris and numerous Kitchenware lines including,
Jennyware and full jadite lines."
- "Briefly it may be said that
Westmoreland county manufactures more window glass, the chief
product of glass, than any other county in the United States.
This is all manufactured in three places, viz.: Jeannette, Arnold,
and Mt. Pleasant, and these factories are described in parts of
this work which pertain to these boroughs. The factories at
Jeannette and Arnold are the largest in the world. Our county
has in the past twenty years wrested this supremacy from the
world, and has taken from Pittsburgh all the glass factories it
had. This is largely due to peculiar natural advantages, viz.:
to an almost inexhaustible vein of coal near Jeannette which is
better adapted to the manufacture of glass than any other known
coal, and to the natural gas which is found in abundance in this
locality. The glass blowing in these large factories is now done
entirely by the most improved modern machinery."
[History of Westmoreland County]
Reference:
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