Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Fritz Dreisbach, 2004 April 21-22. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Robert Levin, 2004 December 11. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Collection is open for research but negatives and audiovisuial materials are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Some papers of living persons are restricted. Access to restricted portions may be arranged by request to the donor. Gloves required for unprotected photographs. Viewing film portions of the collection and listening to LP recording requires special appointment. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Collection Rights:
The Archives Center does not own exclusive rights to these materials. Copyright for all materials is retained by the donor, Franklin A. Robinson, Jr.; permission for commercial use and/or publication may be requested from the donor through the Archives Center. Military Records for Franklin A. Robinson (b. 1932) and correspondence from Richard I. Damalouji (1961-2014) are restricted; written permission is needed to research these files. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
The Robinson and Via Family Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Preservation of the 8mm films in this collection was made possible, in part, by a grant from the National Film Preservation Fund.
Collection is open for research but negatives and audiovisuial materials are stored off-site and special arrangements must be made to work with it. Some papers of living persons are restricted. Access to restricted portions may be arranged by request to the donor. Gloves required for unprotected photographs. Viewing film portions of the collection and listening to LP recording requires special appointment. Contact the Archives Center for information at archivescenter@si.edu or 202-633-3270.
Collection Rights:
The Archives Center does not own exclusive rights to these materials. Copyright for all materials is retained by the donor, Franklin A. Robinson, Jr.; permission for commercial use and/or publication may be requested from the donor through the Archives Center. Military Records for Franklin A. Robinson (b. 1932) and correspondence from Richard I. Damalouji (1961-2014) are restricted; written permission is needed to research these files. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Collection Citation:
The Robinson and Via Family Papers, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Preservation of the 8mm films in this collection was made possible, in part, by a grant from the National Film Preservation Fund.
4.89 Cubic feet (consisting of 10.5 boxes, 2 folders, 5 oversize folders, 2 map case folders.)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Business records
Business cards
Publications
Trade catalogs
Advertisements
Sales catalogs
Business letters
Printed materials
Receipts
Printed material
Invoices
Illustrations
Business ephemera
Letterheads
Design patents
Advertising mail
Patents
Print advertising
Catalogs
Sales records
Advertising
Trade cards
Advertising fliers
Periodicals
Catalogues
Manufacturers' catalogs
Advertising cards
Commercial correspondence
Ephemera
Printed ephemera
Manuals
Reports
Commercial catalogs
Trade literature
Sales letters
Legal documents
Correspondence
Mail order catalogs
Date:
1804-1967
Summary:
A New York bookseller, Warshaw assembled this collection over nearly fifty years. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Glassware forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Subseries 1.1: Subject Categories. The Subject Categories subseries is divided into 470 subject categories based on those created by Mr. Warshaw. These subject categories include topical subjects, types or forms of material, people, organizations, historical events, and other categories. An overview to the entire Warshaw collection is available here: Warshaw Collection of Business Americana
Scope and Contents:
Covers glassware in its many forms and application including in building design and sculpture, both as a structural and an aesthetic component, in lighting, in art as a medium and as a method to protect and display art (picture frames, cases, etcetera.), in industry (insulators, electronics), in transportation (lighthouses, railroad signal glasses, headlamps), and in science with medical and lab supplies and instruments, and equipment such as telescopes. Daily and practical use consumer products feature prominently in the form of household and decorative goods (jarring, canning, dish and serving ware, daily and special use), windows, lamps and lighting, storage of liquids and solids, including detergents, medicine storage, plus beverages and foodstuffs, and cleaning of glass. Colored, ornamental, ground, etched, leaded, stained, and mosaic glasswork related material appears sporadically. China and other ceramic and pottery breakable wear is sometimes categorized along with clear, cut, opaque, and colored glass. Related aspects, such as stoppers, are also included.
Collection materials represent a sampling of businesses and products. The Patent and Design folder has numerous submission summaries, along with schematics, some hand drawn, and a few blueprints, mostly related to bottle design. A limited amount of industry publications and union documents are present, especially for the Glass Workers.
Arrangement:
Glassware is arranged in three subseries.
Business Records and Marketing Material
Genre
Subject
Partial List of Companies in the Oversize Materials:
Oversize materials include, but are not limited to the following companies:
Averbeck, M.J., New York, NY
Cleveland Glass Works, Cleveland, NY
Cold Spring Distilling Company Cincinatti, OH
Craft House Williamsburg Restoration, Inc. Williamsburg, VA
Cullen & Newman Knoxville, TN
French, Richards, and Company Philadelphia, PA
Glassware: Union Wages and Rules
Jones, Thomas New York, NY
Libby Owens Ford Class Company Manufacturers of Safety Glass Location unknown
Metropolitan Plate Glass Insurance Company New York, NY
Morgantown, WV
New Jersey Plate Glass Insurance Company Newark, NJ
New York Plate Glass Insurance Company New York, NY
Seneca Glass Company
Smalley, A.G. and Company Boston, MA
Woods, Sherwood and Company Lowell, MA
Forms Part Of:
Forms part of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana.
Series 1: Business Ephemera
Series 2: Other Collection Divisions
Series 3: Isadore Warshaw Personal Papers
Series 4: Photographic Reference Material
Provenance:
Glassware is a portion of the Business Ephemera Series of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana, Accession AC0060 purchased from Isadore Warshaw in 1967. Warshaw continued to accumulate similar material until his death, which was donated in 1971 by his widow, Augusta. For a period after acquisition, related materials from other sources (of mixed provenance) were added to the collection so there may be content produced or published after Warshaw's death in 1969. This practice has since ceased.
Restrictions:
Collection is open for research. Some items may be restricted due to fragile condition.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
Warshaw Collection of Business Americana Subject Categories: Glassware, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
Funding for partial processing of the collection was supported by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution's Collections Care and Preservation Fund (CCPF).
An interview of Robert Levin conducted 2004 December 11, by Joan Byrd, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Burnsville, North Carolina.
Levin speaks of growing up in Dundalk, Maryland; participating in theater in high school; attending Denison University; becoming interested in ceramics and glass; attending graduate school at Southern Illinois University; working as an assistant to Fritz Dreisbach at Pilchuck Glass School; teaching at Penland School of Crafts; becoming resident glass artist at Penland; influential artists; moving to Celo; the North Carolina craft community; the element of play in his work; mixing glass colors; keeping variety in his work; the process of making sculptural and functional pieces; the influence of nature and other cultures on his work; including political and social statements in his work; making mixed-media pieces; working on commission; making Judaica pieces; the glass blowing process; being part of an international glass tradition; participating in the Glass Art Society; the reasons he enjoys teaching; attending GAS conferences; participating in regional art organizations; his home studio and the equipment he uses; how his working process has changed; designing a series of awards; his interest in music and guitar; the qualities of glass; and the importance of intuitiveness in creating his pieces. Levin also recalls Audrey Handler, Bill Boysen, Bill Brown, Richard Ritter, Bill Bernstein, Mark Peiser, Harvey Littleton, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Levin (1948- ) is a glass artist from Burnsville, North Carolina. Joan Falconer Byrd (1939- ) is a professor in the art department, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, North Carolina.
General:
Originally recorded on 3 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 3 digital wav files. Duration is 3 hr., 14 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
An interview of Fritz Dreisbach conducted 2004 April 21-22, by Susanne Frantz, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Tucson, Arizona.
Dreisbach speaks of growing up in Ohio, in a family of educators and deciding at an early age to become a teacher; taking high school art; pursuing a BA in art and mathematics at Hiram College; getting his MAT and teaching high school math; attending the University of Iowa to study painting; the impact of taking a summer class in glassblowing; visiting Dominick Labino at his studio; researching colored glass and glass chemistry; becoming Harvey K. Littleton's teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; building a hot shop and teaching at the Toledo Museum of Art; teaching at Penland School of Crafts; creating the Glass Art Society with Mark Peiser after attending a NCECA conference; moving to Seattle to make glass colors for The Glass Eye; and working for Spectrum Glass Company. Dreisbach also speaks of the importance of community among glass artists; taking part in glass symposia in Frauenau, Germany; traveling around the country to teach workshops, known as his "Road Show"; making representational pop-style pieces as well as historical reference pieces; collaborating on a stained glass window with Gary Noffke; developing techniques for making goblets; working with Dante Marioni on a series of goblets; his commissioned pieces, including the Corning Pokal; engraving glass; his Mongo series; selling works through galleries; the influence of the Italian glass artists; teaching at Pilchuck Glass School; Dominick Labino's career and innovations in glass technology; being invited to give the Samuel R. Scholes lecture at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University; serving twice as Glass Art Society president; inaccuracies in the history of American studio glass; taking part in GAS conferences at Fenton Glass Factory; the importance of the rise of the university-trained glass artist in the 1960s; going to Pilchuck for the first time; meeting international glass artists; attending symposia at Novy Bor, Czech Republic; and his plans for the future. Dreisbach also recalls Tom McGlauchlin, Clayton Bailey, Erwin Eisch, Dale Chihuly, Bill Brown, Marvin Lipofsky, Joel Myers, Billy Bernstein, Dan Dailey, Dudley Giberson, Harvey Leafgreen, Bill Boysen, Henry Halem, Peter Voulkos, Ruth Tamura, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Fritz Dreisbach (1941- ) is a glass artist from Tucson, Arizona. Susanne Frantz is a writer and curator from Paradise Valley, Arizona.
General:
Originally recorded on 8 sound discs. Reformatted in 2010 as 21 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hr., 41 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
National Museum of American History (U.S.). Division of Ceramics and Glass Search this
Extent:
0.1 Cubic feet (1 box, 29 microfiche sheets)
Type:
Collection descriptions
Archival materials
Microfiche
Catalogs
Business records
Date:
1909-1940
Scope and Contents:
This collection is divided into two series, Catalogs and Photographs, on fifty nine (59) microfiche sheets. These are photographic reproductions of catalogs of Imperial Glass Products from 1909 to 1912 and of several photographs showing Imperial Glass Company products, their stock numbers and rulers indicating size. Some of these photos are hand painted. Many of the catalogs have no dates and are arranged by number and type. A few of them have prices noted throughout and were presumably used by salesmen at the company. There is one catalog from The Central Glass Works of Wheeling, Virginia, one of the companies that Imperial purchased. There are General Catalogs, "Bargain Book" catalogs, a Special Catalog of Hand Engraved and Sand Blasted Glassware and a Special Catalog of Plain and Engraved Gas and Electric Glassware.
Arrangement:
Divided into two series.
Series 1: Catalogues
Series 2: Photographs
Historical:
The Imperial Glass Company was established in 1901 in Bellaire, Ohio. The company's first pieces were produced for the mass market for stores like Kresge's and McCrory's; they produced jelly glasses, pressed tumblers, butter dishes, pickle dishes, berry bowls, and a variety of other tableware.
With the introduction of machine-pressed glassware in 1910, the market expanded. Imperial Glass Company began producing "NUART" iridescent ware in colors of "rubigold, peacock, sapphire, rose satin, blue satin, iris ice, blue ice, and rose ice." The company began making "NUCUT" crystal ware, which was pressed glass made to reproduce early English pressed glass.
"Imperial Jewels," introduced in 1916, were free-hand iridescent "stretch glass" pieces. In 1922 the company imported a shop of Venetian glassmakers to what the company labeled Imperial "Art Glass." Catalogue 103G states on page 3-G, "these wares are covered with heavy deposits of various metal oxides, which make them nearly opaque in appearance. The enormous heat, necessary to develop these colors, cannot be regulated mathematically, and therefore there are scarcely two pieces alike, even when manufactured apparently in the same manner and under the same conditions." These pieces, mostly bowls, nappies, berry bowls, and nut bowls, are in colors of pearl green, pearl white, pearl ruby, and pearl amethyst.
The Depression and the influx of machine glass companies combined to push Imperial Glass Co. into bankruptcy in 1931, although the plant continued to operate after it went into receivership.
The company in 1940 started an acquisitions program and bought a series of other companies including the Central Glass Works of Wheeling, Virginia, (est. 1860). In 1958 Imperial Glass purchased molds from the Heisey Co. (est.1885) and bought the Cambridge Glass Co. (est. 1873). The firm became a subsidiary of Lenox China Inc. in 1973.
In June 1984 Imperial Glass went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The plant closed August 31, 1984, and the company's assets were taken over by Lancaster Colony Corporation, Columbus, Ohio.
Provenance:
Collection donated by the Corning Museum of Glass.
Restrictions:
No original material in this collection at the present time. Researchers must view microfiche copies.
Rights:
Collection items available for reproduction, but the Archives Center makes no guarantees concerning copyright restrictions. Other intellectual property rights may apply. Archives Center cost-recovery and use fees may apply when requesting reproductions.
United States of America -- New York -- Westchester County -- Yonkers
Date:
1940.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original archival materials by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
United States of America -- New York -- Westchester County -- Yonkers
Date:
circa 1940.
Collection Restrictions:
Access to original archival materials by appointment only. Researcher must submit request for appointment in writing. Certain items may be restricted and not available to researchers. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
Collection Rights:
Archives of American Gardens encourages the use of its archival materials for non-commercial, educational and personal use under the fair use provision of U.S. copyright law. Use or copyright restrictions may exist. It is incumbent upon the researcher to ascertain copyright status and assume responsibility for usage. All requests for duplication and use must be submitted in writing and approved by Archives of American Gardens. Please direct reference inquiries to the Archives of American Gardens: aag@si.edu.
