by: Alan Knutson

Figure 1
Figure 1. New York World’s Fair 1939.

On 30 Apr 1939, the New York World’s Fair opened on the 150 th anniversary of George Washington’s first Presidential inauguration at Flushing Meadows in Queens. On its 1202 acres (486 ha), there were exhibits by more than 1300 corporations, 34 US territories and states, and 62 other countries. These exhibits were located in an estimated 375 buildings. Among those corporations was a group of glass manufacturers at the “Glass Center”.

Figure 2
Figure 2. The Glass Center Building at the New York World’s Fair 1939.

Among those glass manufacturers was a company headquartered in Toledo, Ohio, Owens-Corning. Owens-Corning had been formed in 1938 by the merger of Owens-Illinois Glass and Corning Glass. Supposedly, among the promotions they o ered at their exhibit was a series of meter slogan promotions that were issued over the course of the fair in 1939-1940 and then beyond. The first reference found of these items was in the 1940 edition of William Steiger’s “A Handbook of United States Postage Meters”.

It has long been thought that these items were created as a promotion for the fair, although the later varieties were issued into 1941, long after the final closing of the fair in October 1940. Although the story regarding the World’s Fair may be apocryphal, most of the known examples appear to have been presentation pieces, with Toledo town marks. Postally used examples on cover would command a premium.

These items appear on National Postal Meter Co meters 6131 (with an extra period after OHIO) and 6834.

List of Subjects:
                      No. 1 Primitive Man Discovers Nature’s Glass
                      No. 2 Legendary Discovery of Glass
                      No. 3 Egypt Makes Glass – 1500 BC
                      No. 4 Invention of Blow Pipe – 300 BC
                      No. 5 Colored Glass Made – 200 AD
                      No. 6 Stained Glass Windows – 600 AD
                      No. 7 Venetian Glass 15th Century
                      No. 8 Glass Mirrors Invented 15th Century
                      No. 9 Optical Glass Invented 14th Century
                      No. 10 Plate Glass 17th Century
                      No. 11 Cut Glass 17th Century
                      No. 12 First American Manufacture 1600 AD
                      No. 13 Early American Glass
                      No. 14 First Electric Light Bulb
                      No. 15 First Automatic Bottle Machine 1902
                      No. 16 Modern Window Glass
                      No. 17 X-Ray Resistant Glass
                      No. 18 Safety Glass Fabricated
                      No. 19 Glass Building Block 1933
                      No. 20 Commercial Fiberglass Production - 1934
                      No. 21 The Improved Production of Glass

Some samples are depicted below.

Figure 3

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Figure 9

Editor’s Note

Some interesting information about the history of glass can be found at https://glass.com.ng/glass-fact-history-glass/

“Where and when glass production began is uncertain. It is thought by some that the first glass was probably developed in the Mitannian or Hurrian region of Mesopotamia, possibly as an extension of the production of glazes (5000 BCE). Glass objects dated back to 2500 BCE have been found in Syria, and by 2450 BCE, glass beads were plentiful in Mesopotamia. Glass came later in Egypt, with its manufacture appearing as a major industry around 1500 BCE. The oldest glass of undisputed date found in Egypt dates from 2200 BCE.

In the beginning, it was very hard and slow to manufacture glass. Glass melting furnaces were small, and the heat they produced was hardly enough to melt glass. But in the 1st century BC, Syrian craftsmen invented the blow pipe. This revolutionary discovery made glass production easier, faster, and cheaper. Glass production flourished in the Roman Empire and spread from Italy to all countries under its rule. In 1000 AD, the Egyptian city of Alexandria was the most important center of glass manufacture. Throughout Europe, the miraculous art of making stained glass in churches and cathedrals across the continent reached its height in the finest Chartres and Canterbury cathedral windows produced in the 13th and 14th centuries. By 1575, English glassmakers were making glass in Venetian fashion. In 1674, an English glassmaker George Ravenscroft, invented lead glass.

The first glass factory in the United States was built in Jamestown, Virginia in 1608.

In the early 1800’s, there was a great demand for window glass, which was called crown glass. In the 1820s, the age of blowing individual bottles, glasses, and flasks was ended by the invention of a hand-operated machine. In the 1870s, the first semi-automatic bottle machine was introduced.

After 1890, glass use, development, and manufacture began to increase rapidly. Machinery has been developed for the precise, continuous manufacture of a host of products. In 1902, Irving W. Colburn invented the sheet glass drawing machine, which made possible the mass production of window glass. In 1904, the American engineer Michael Owens patented an automatic bottle-blowing machine.

In 1959 new revolutionary float glass production was introduced by Sir Alastair Pilkington, by which 90% of flat glass is still manufactured today.” (text slightly modified and corrected)