Seneca Glass Company was a glass manufacturer that began in Fostoria, Ohio, in1891. At one time it was the largest manufacturer of blown tumblers (drinking glasses) in the United States. The company was also known for its high-quality lead (crystal) stemware, which was hand-made for nearly a century. Customers included Eleanor Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, and retailers such as Marshall Field and Company, Neiman Marcus, and Tiffany's.
The company took possession of its Fostoria plant on January 1, 1892, after it was vacated by the Fostoria Glass Company. Otto Jaeger was the first president of Seneca Glass Company, and he had been part of the Fostoria Glass Company management team. Like Jaeger, many of the new company's original leaders were German craftsmen experienced in glassmaking. In addition to being investors in the company, these craftsmen worked in the plant. In 1896, the firm moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, and continued to produce high-quality decorated glassware. A second plant was built close to Morgantown in 1911 to produce less-elaborate ware.
During the 1950s, Seneca introduced its Driftwood Casual table setting pattern in an attempt to capture a less formal segment of the glassware market. This pattern was produced for nearly 30 years, and became especially important to the company as formal glassware became less popular. In 1982, the company was sold to a group of investors that renamed the firm Seneca Crystal Incorporated. The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1983. Today, the Seneca Glass Company building in Morgantown is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and contains small retail shops and offices.
Background
Glassmaking
Glass is made by starting with a batch of ingredients (mostly sand), melting it, forming the glass product, and gradually cooling it. The batch is placed inside a pot or tank that is heated by a furnace to roughly 3090°F (1700°C). The melted batch is typically shaped into the glass product (other than window or plate glass) by either a glassblower or by pressing it into a mold (also spelled "mould"). Most glass factories had a summer stop where the production was shut down for about six weeks. This was done because the summer heat combined with the heat of the furnace to make the work environment almost unbearable for workers in the hot end (near molten glass). The summer stop also allowed time to perform maintenance on the facility without disrupting the production process.
The Seneca Glass Company used European glass production methods learned by their founders in Germany. The glass that was made was lead flint glass, which is made mostly from silica, potash, and oxide of lead. This type of glass has more sparkle and shine than flint glass made from lime. Technology from the 1890s and earlier was used throughout the company's existence. A glassblower's assistant (the gatherer) used a hollow pipe to extract molten glass from a pot. The glassblower and his crew used air, hand tools, and molds to shape the glass into the desired form. In some cases, a rim glazer was used to polish edges of the glass using small jets of flame.
The glass product had to be cooled gradually (annealed), or else it would become brittle and possibly break. A long conveyer oven used for annealing is called a lehr. In the case of the glassware made at Seneca's Morgantown plant, it took almost two hours for the glass to move from the hot end of the lehr to the cool end. Packers, generally girls and women, removed the cooled glass from the lehr and packed the product for shipping. Some of the finished glass would be cut, etched, or engraved before it was packed. Glass with gold or silver trim added would be reheated to fuse the trim to the glass.
Because most glass plants melted their ingredients in a pot during the 1880s, the plant's number of pots was often used to describe a plant's capacity. The ceramic pots were located inside the furnace, and contained molten glass created by melting the batch of ingredients. One of the major expenses for the glass factories is fuel for the furnace. Wood and coal had long been used as fuel for glassmaking. An alternative fuel, natural gas, became a desirable fuel for making glass in the late 19th century because it is clean, gives a uniform heat, is easier to control, and melts the batch of ingredients faster.