Bottle
Object number96.48.1
Datec.1905
OriginUniontown, Pennsylvania
MediumGlass
Credit LineGift of Vincent F. Lackner
DescriptionMachine made brown glass beer bottle.Dimensions9.75 x 2.5 in. (24.8 x 6.4 cm)MarksOn front body, "LABOR BREWING CO. / UNIONTOWN, PA."; at base, "CONTENTS 12 FLUID OZ."
Label TextQuality and Quantity The methods of automation were readily adapted to all phases of glassmaking. Machines for making bottles, light bulbs, and lamp chimneys were major breakthroughs. To adapt machines to the glass tableware industry, Macbeth-Evans hired mechanical engineers such as Charles Schuck. By the late 1920s, the company made complete lines of dinnerware in pink, green, and other popular colors. Such glass was advertised as a “quality product at a volume price.” Machine-made tableware, known by collectors today as “Depression Glass,” was so inexpensive that movie theaters, soap companies, and others sometimes used it as giveaway gift and premiums. Blowing Bottles Pittsburgher Philip Arbogast developed an early semi-automatic bottle machine. Until Arbogast’s device was introduced in 1882, bottles were hand-formed or blown into molds, since their narrow necks made pressing impossible. Then in 1903, Michaels Owens unveiled a fully automatic machine that gathered the glass and blew and formed the bottles. The immediate cost savings were amazing: a blown bottle cost a penny, while a machine made 15 bottles for the same price. However, owners introduced automation slowly, over a 15-year period, to prevent prices from plummeting and to reduce antagonism with skilled workers and unions.
Related institution
Labor Brewing Company
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