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Women in Glasshouses: An Appealing Woman – How to Sell Glass

Corning Glass Works. *Saturday Evening Post*, 1947. CMGL 138926

Is your home clean and stylish? Your husband happy and adoring? Are you thin, white, and good-smelling with helpful and obedient children? Then you must own [insert name of glassware product here]. Ads selling glassware from the early 1900s reflect the hairstyles and clothing of their times but the messages, though often more blatantly expressed than today’s ads, hit a familiar note. Take a contemporary ad for Riedel wine glasses with the tagline: Perfect Partner, Perfect Love, Perfect Glass. What’s the connection between a wine glass and a perfect romantic relationship? Beats me! But since ads began to make psychology a part of their process, this idea of purchasing a product to enhance your life has existed.

To make that work, you need a shared vision of what is ideal. For ads targeting women, the images and ad copy reflected these ideals. According to this trade journal article on how to sell cut glass:

“All women respond to the beautiful…and it is the ambition of every woman to have a pretty dining room. Men admire cut glass too…for the reasons that their wives tell them it is so easily kept clean and pretty; they also like it because as gifts to the wife…it is always certain to please.”
(Jewelers’ Circular, March 15, 1922, p 125)

Dennis and Barbara DuBois during the
New Glass Now celebrations in 2019.

From small treasures, incredible collections can blossom. Such is the case for Ennion Society Members Dennis and Barbara DuBois. In 1985, when Dennis surprised his wife with two perfume bottles, it was the start of glass playing an important role in their lives. The gift was cherished, Dennis was inspired to buy another, and their collection began to take shape. In time, perfume bottles gave way to sculpture. Many years later, Dennis and Barbara have one of the finest collections of contemporary glass art in the United States.

“We bought for a few years and then someone called us ‘glass collectors’ and we looked at each other and said, ‘I guess we are!’” Dennis recalls.

Dennis and Barbara both grew up on the North Shore of Boston, MA, but wouldn’t meet until they each began studying at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Two years later they were married. They moved to Maryland and welcomed children Darcie and Michael to the family. They would finally relocate south to Dallas, TX, in 1981—where Dennis and Barbara still reside.

Women in Glasshouses: Now We’re Cooking with Glass! A Spotlight on Lucy Maltby

Pyrex® revolutionized home cooking and gave bakers and chefs a new tool to fill with ingredients and throw in the oven. Home cooks’ lives were made easier by the efforts of those who developed and tested Pyrex. Dr. Lucy Maltby ran the Pyrex Test Kitchen at Corning Glass Works. She was a pioneer in the 1930s with a PhD in the growing field of home economics, a specialty that sought efficiencies in the modern household. Maltby helped bridged the gap between product developers and Pyrex users.

*Pyrex Prize Recipes*, Greystone Press, NY, 1953.
Courtesy of The Rakow Research Library

She helped sell a lot of Pyrex to consumers at a time when women working across most US industries were not compensated at the same level as men doing similar jobs. By the time Maltby retired in 1965, women in the U.S. were being paid about 60% as much as their male counterparts.¹

For this blog, I wanted to dive deeper and learn more about her, but with limited access to print materials in the Rakow Library’s archives (thanks a lot, coronavirus pandemic) I was largely out of luck. However, I did find newspaper articles from all over the country that published Maltby’s recipes, and that got me thinking. What if I got to know Lucy Maltby better by stepping into her shoes and testing out some of her recipes?

Three Unbreakable Layers: The Secret of Corelle

As I walked onto my deck, dinner in hand, ready to enjoy a beautiful summer evening, I looked at my plate and suddenly remembered that my blog on Corelle was due. Dinner would just have to wait.

Like many people, I suspect, when I think of Corelle, I remember eating outside in the summer as a child, sharing family meals around the table, going to potluck dinners, and other pleasant memories. But unlike many people, I suspect, I can’t not think of the incredible science and technology behind Corelle.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the invention of Corelle. To celebrate the occasion, The Corning Museum of Glass presents Dish It! Corelle at 50, an exhibition taking you behind the scenes of one of America’s most cherished brand names.

Known for its simplicity, beauty, practicality, durability, and affordability, Corelle is also a stackable, classy, and glassy dinnerware that comes in more sizes, shapes, and patterns than you might imagine. Dish It! explores the people behind the plates and patterns, how the dishes are made, and the scientific secret to Corelle’s legendary toughness. This latter I can shed a little light on here, but you’ll have to visit to get the full story.

New Glass Review 43: An Outside Perspective on the Best of Contemporary Glass

Get excited and check the mail, because New Glass Review returns this month for its 43rd issue.

An annual exhibition-in-print, New Glass Review features 100 of the most timely, innovative projects in glass produced during the year. Artworks include sculptures, vessels, installations, and other works in glass by emerging and established artists.

A flagship publication of The Corning Museum of Glass since 1980, New Glass Review is a cyclical reintroduction into the world of contemporary glass and the artists who inhabit it; artists who continually push the boundaries of the material and the limits of their expression.

Following an open call for submissions that receives hundreds of entries every year from countries across the world, New Glass Review is curated by the Museum’s curator of postwar and contemporary glass and a changing panel of guest curators. While the search for the Museum’s next contemporary curator was underway this past summer, Samantha De Tillio was invited to lead the selection process. De Tillo was joined by Davin K. Ebanks, Kim Harty, and Kimberly Thomas.

Amy Schwartz & William Gudenrath Honored with 2023 James Renwick Alliance for Craft Award

The Studio’s Amy Schwartz and William (Bill) Gudenrath were honored on Saturday, May 6 in Washington DC with the James Renwick Alliance for Craft (JRA) Distinguished Craft Educator Award for excellence and innovation in education. The biennial award was celebrated at the JRA Spring Craft Weekend with a Symposium, Gala, and Awards Brunch. Recognized for their influence on future artists and significant contributions to American education in the craft field, Amy and Bill’s selection as honorees was the first time in the ceremony’s 20-year history that both makers and educators were honored at the same time.

William (Bill) Gudenrath and Amy Schwartz with their award at the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC, May 6, 2023. Photo courtesy of the James Renwick Alliance.

Amy and Bill are the latest on a long list of distinguished honorees—the JRA Award has recognized some of the most influential craft artists in American history. This year, the other nominees included ceramic artist, social activist, and spoken word poet Roberto Lugo (the youngest artist to ever receive the Master of the Medium award); furniture maker Kristina Madsen; and curator, quilter, author, art historian, and aerospace engineer Carolyn Mazloomi.

CMoG Named One of the “7 Glass Wonders of the World”

Capping a truly momentous year for glass, The Corning Museum of Glass has achieved a new distinction: being named one of the “7 Glass Wonders of the World.”

The announcement was made during the closing festivities of the United Nations International Year of Glass (IYOG) 2022. The year officially concluded with a Conference and Ceremony at the University of Tokyo, Japan, on December 8-9, which was attended by our very own President and Executive Director Karol Wight. This event was followed by an official debriefing held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on December 14.

Lino Tagliapietra in the Museum’s Amphitheater Hot Shop, May 13, 2022.

Lino Tagliapietra may be retiring, but not before one final visit to The Corning Museum of Glass. Last weekend was a monumental one for Lino, the glassblowers and staff at the Museum, and all the guests who filled the Amphitheater Hot Shop to see the Maestro at work during what will be his final performance in Corning.

To celebrate Lino’s enduring legacy, we asked those lucky enough to know and work with him, to describe the impact he has made on the glass world. To no surprise, the response was fervent and unanimous: Lino’s impact is, and will always be, extraordinary!