Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Eleven (A) - "A Small Point"

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Eleven (A)

"A Small Point"

            Having now, through the discernment that smearing bear grease in one’s hair, was TOO... linked by primary specimen... to old glassware in the New England home... to this day... including good, bad or indifferent ‘taste’ of ...fashion... and design.  HAVING NOW noticed that the bear pomade jar IS of ‘pressed glass’ in whole AND it is of its design ...in the shape of a bear.... in its effort to, being of iota (Part Nine), garner a ...broad domestic placement market (a ‘girls must have’ marketing threshold for... iota... otherwise only grading commercially as a ‘forlorn pitch’) that, by relic survival OF these ...press glass bear shaped hair grease jars DOES PROVE an ‘it succeed’ and

            Be then that too; a true old glassware in the... true old New England home.

            THIS nightmare of hair grease, vanquished today so to... too... vanquish the container design form to be now an only... antiquarian titillation...  And too:

Yet... for I... is a need to cast back to the established development-to-date boundary (1828) of ...technical glassware production process.... in old New England:  I drag the bear pomade into this:

            I left ‘the men of pressed glass’ making ‘clumsy’ ‘chunky’ ‘stepped’ ‘squared’ pressed glass bases for whale oil lamps and took off into the bedroom of vain and vanities of... hair grease... containers... so... I skipped ahead a little.  I stated this when it happened in Part Ten; the ‘Ah really’:

            I opened:

            “Returning to the whale oil lamp, we now notice the fragile production process.  It is fragile because it requires a gathering of glass and glass craftsmen that may not, from the get go, be able to ...cost effectively... ‘do this’.  That concern is rammed and sunk by ‘ran out of whales’.  Same thing happens with ‘bear grease’; the girls ‘tax’ the ‘supply’.

            And continued:

             “SO GET ‘em to BUY something else WE MAKE and ...streamline the COST of that.  TOO”.  They did that; the glass makers, they did that.  Drunk men stomping goo-gobs of glass cost less then glass blowers blowing glass “and anyway” improvements in mold making and production processes... with these improvements NOT requiring an improvement of ‘men’... ‘naturally’ took care of the ‘elimination’ of the need to have ‘them’ (glassblower)... on the payroll.  Or anywhere.

            And concluded”

            “Ah.... really?”

            Yes:  “Ah... really”.  But... this time the objects RIDE UPON ‘fashion’.  That is, ah... ‘taste’; they ride UPON taste; then current taste that we now historically understand... in design, may be ‘good taste’ or ...’bad taste’... OR...

            Maybe it’s just what is called “FASHION”.  I do remind though, that I, the antiquarian... AM TIME TRAVELING ‘of this’ when and FOR WHEN... I am, well, plundering the old New England glassware... from the old New England homes.  I TOLD YOU ... that I DO KNOW; I am self aware... when (at the time of) I’m ‘doing this’ (Part Ten).

            OK so one sees the ‘points’ (stair steps?) here coming from the bear-grease-in-hair... syndrome?  A...; that grown men stomping on goo-gobs of molten glass metal were... to their best mind sight... ‘trying to do this’; make an iota out of pressed glass that ‘sold’ INTO the New England home.  They did this.

            They succeeded.

            With two... design forms..: two ‘styles’ of ‘objects’... STILL FOUND in the consideration of ...old glassware in the New England home.

            “THE WINDOWS?” you say?  Your such an idiot.

            The out going fashion of tea drinking intermingled with the incoming fashion of coffee drinking AND THE social fashion of ...temperance consideration (‘The Temperance Movement’) and the

            IMPROVEMENT of imported English (Staffordshire) ‘china’ design (I am not writing about this) and this improved ‘china’ being greatly improved for ...affordable access and usage by a ...stable and domestic focused New England middle class home and

            Pressed glass being now... invented...:

            INVENTED

            By Americans in New England.

            “Ah really?”

            “Ah really:  It, surpassing the formally noted New England glassware production process of the re-introduction of ‘blown molded glassware’ (re-invented from the Romans (Part Six) (Remember?)... this is the second and BIGGEST by far ‘invention’ ‘in (global) glassware’ ...ever... and still on-going to this day... (includes juice glass design):  Pressed glass is a big one starting as a little one (‘iota’) of a “what can we MAKE merged with ‘fashion’ (good and bad taste of... fashion) and, again, they

            DID THIS.

            WHAT DID THEY MAKE?

            Cup... plates

            Cup plates are the first successful marketing venture of ‘pressed glass’.  They were invented and produced... nearly exclusively in New England... for the New England home, et al.  YES some were ‘Midwestern’ (Part Seven).  But... the GEM of the notion and their production is in

            New England.

            “WHAT... by crackiee... BE a cup... plate?”

            You say.

            Be you there?
            Stinking of bear grease in your hair

            And blinded by the burning

            Spermaceti’s  glare?

            She is beautiful

            Rising from her chair

            Passing you a cup and saucer

            Without a care.

            So the empty cup and saucer is handed to you and she; Ms. Beautiful, funks around the ...front parlor room... in her ...handmade imported from Paris (label on inside bottom) silk slippers with her... teapot?  Coffeepot?.  It doesn’t matter... when her back is turned to you and you are looking at her that way and... you hurry up for you are the next served and you

            Quickly, gracefully and courteously slip... a little and thin three inch diameter (2 5/8” – 3 ¼”) pressed glass plate out from between the bottom of your empty cup and its saucer and... neatly, smoothly, graciously and with no ceremony... set this little ...pressed glass plate... on the “do not set a glass it will leave a ring” “darling”... side table and... ah... wait as ‘she is beautiful’ turns and (DON’T SPILL IT RETARD) fills your ... English Staffordshire ‘handless’ cup resting in the saucer smiling she does at your very inner eye and... her little sister pops up as Ms. Beautiful turns away with “cream and sugar?”.  Your breathing hard but quietly.  The bear grease in your hair is getting warm and stinks.  The spermaceti burning stinks.  Too.  You watch her feet move away and you

            Are holding a full cup of tea or coffee resting in the saucer and you

            Carefully lift the cup and

            Poor the contents into “NOW I KNOW WHY THOSE OLD SAUCERS WERE SO DEEP!” the saucer and... holding that with one hand in a manly way that includes your not particularly clean thumb gripping the inner edge of the saucer just above the liquid and

            With your other hand you

            Set the now empty cup down

            On its

            Cup

            Plate

            And, like everyone else in the room, take your first sip...

            From the cup’s saucer.

            Like I said; “funky’.

            This social excellence of fashionable elegance is?

            NUTS but hey:

            They’re already were burning whales and greasing with bears so, like, what’s drinking out of a saucer ...as being the RIGHT WAY to... ah... ‘do this’.  And you saw it happen too; the little glass plate was there too... doing what nothing else had ever done ever before in a New England home... before;

            Ever

            Too.

            Ok... so they (the glass makers) made these stupid little plates called ‘cup plates’ to ‘do that’ and THEY DID DO THAT and ‘it worked’ and

            EVERYBODY LOVED THEM

            AND USED THEM

            After buying them

            From the old New England glass makers and

            Taking them home to their... (old) New England home.

            And if you ‘didn’t’

            You were not

            Of Fashion

            And good taste.

            Of course the English, who made the old china saucers and ...old china cup plates too... VERY SOON started to goof on the ‘stupid American’ ‘girls’ in their... very nice and new big white New England homes that were ‘obviously better’ middle class homes ‘than they have’ (in England) and ah... Ms. She Beautiful, just by being THAT pissed the English off too so... even though they STARTED this saucer-drinking-fashion... they were the first to ...tear it down too.

            They did.  Not even YOU in your (old New England home) “DO THAT”.  No... you have... juice glasses.  But... if you live in your great grandmother’s old New England home... and turn me loose in that home... I will find your great grandmother’s HOARD of cup plates.  I will.  I do this all the time.  For the past fifty years.  And... I know I’m doing it when I’m ‘doing it’.

            Want to find a cup plate hoard yourself.  But... don’t have the ‘home’ hiding a hoard.  Well... that best place to find a hoard of old New England glassware cup plates is at the big box store thrift stores.  Yeah... they take a ‘stack’ and wrap them in packing tape and sell them for a couple of bucks.  I find ‘em just sitting there all taped up.  They think they are butter chips.  They’re not.  Butter chips are a whole different design form and have a whole separated design history.  A cup plate is a cup plate... not a butter chip.  It is:

            “Not a butter chip you idiot.”

            I know:  It’s a small point.

            But:

            Everything I do is a

            Small point.