APPENDIX II
SIGNIFICANT DATES IN THE AMERICAN GLASS INDUSTRY
| First three-piece hinged mold | c. 1808 |
| Two-piece hinged mold first used in America | by 1809 |
| First widespread use of slanting collar finish | c. 1820 |
| Ricketts patent for three-piece mold with lettered base | 1821 |
| First side-lever glass press | late 1820s |
| “Lacy” pressed glass | 1820s-1840s |
| Popularity of smooth-patterned pressed glass tableware sets | c. 1840s-1880s |
| Development of jawed lipping tool for bottles | pre-1840 |
| Amasa Stone receives first U.S. patent for lipping tool | 1856 |
| Introduction into U.S. of non-pontil holding devices for bottles | late 1840s-1850s |
| Formula for kerosene patented by Abraham Gesner | 1854 |
| Development of two-piece mold with separate post base | pre-1858 |
| Mason jar patent | 1858 |
| Blow-back mold in general use | c. 1858-1900 |
| First oil well in Pennsylvania leads to widespread use of kerosene fueled lamps | 1859 |
| Introduction of French Square pharmacy bottles | early 1860s |
| Student lamp patented in Prussia | 1863 |
| Leighton formula for improved lime glass | 1864 |
| Development of plate mold for embossed bottles | pre-1867 |
| Widespread embossing of bottles | 1860s-1920s |
| Empontilling of bottles almost entirely replaced by use of holding devices | 1870s |
| Greatest popularity of turn-molded bottles | 1870s-1920s |
| Student lamp introduced in U.S. | 1870s |
| Louis Pasteur developed sterilization techniques for beer | 1870 |
| Anheuser-Busch begins first commercial bottling of American beer | early 1870s |
| Heavily embossed and colored poison bottles | 1872-1930s |
| Improved finishing processes result in smoother and more uniformly applied bottle finishes | by 1880 |
| Argobast patent for semiautomatic press-and-blow machine for wide-mouthed jars | 1881 |
| H. W. Putnam acquires patent rights for lightning stopper | 1882 |
| Borosilicate glass developed in Germany | 1883 |
| Macbeth-Evans Co. patents “pearl top” lamp chimney | 1883 |
| William Painter patents crown cap | 1892 |
| Enterprise Glass Co. puts Argobast semiautomatic into commercial production | 1893 |
| South Carolina dispensary system | 1893-1907 |
| Michael Owens patents semiautomatic turn-molding machine for light bulbs, tumblers, and lamp chimneys | 1894 |
| First lamp chimney and tumbler production on Owens turn-mold machine | 1898 |
| Most wide-mouthed jars produced on semiautomatic machines | by 1901 |
| Owens automatic bottle machine patented | 1903 |
| Owens machine put into commercial production: first narrow-necked machine-made bottles | 1904 |
| First production of narrow-necked bottles on semiautomatic machines | c. 1907 |
| Corning Glass Works develops Pyrex heat-resistant glass | 1915 |
| Use of manganese to decolor glass | 1917 |
| State prohibition law goes into effect in South Carolina | 1916 |
| National beer and wine production halted under Wartime Food Control Act and Volstead Act | 1918-1920 |
| National prohibition of alcohol under eighteenth amendment and Volstead Act | 1920-1933 |
| Machine-made bottles comprise 90% of total United States production | 1925 |
APPENDIX III
MARKS LEFT BY DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES OF BOTTLE MANUFACTURE
Free-blown bottles usually date before the second half of the nineteenth century and are characterized by an absence of mold lines of any sort. Because no molds were used, these bottles are often asymmetrical. Dip-molded bottles, or bottles molded for basic body shape below the shoulder, are also generally pre-Civil War and can only tentatively be distinguished from free-blown bottles by their symmetry below the shoulder and a slight tapering from shoulder to base. Bottles blown in a two-piece mold have mold lines extending up two opposite sides, usually to just below the tooled lip. On early nineteenth century bottles of this sort, the mold lines continue across the center of the base, but after the 1850s, most two-piece molds had a separate base part, either a cup bottom, in which the seam encircled the outer edge of the base, or a post bottom, which left a circular seam on the bottom of the bottle. Most bottles from the Middleton Place privy were blown in two-piece molds with cup bottoms.
The three-piece mold leaves a single horizontal line around the shoulder of the bottle, and vertical lines extending up either side of the shoulder. The height of these lines can vary from partway up the shoulder to nearly to the top of the neck. A turn-molded bottle has been rotated in the mold to erase mold marks and will exhibit faint horizontal scratches and striations on the body and neck.
Embossing, very popular after the Civil War, usually consists of the name of a company or product printed in raised letters on the sides or base of the bottle. Isolated numbers and letters on or just above the base are usually, but not always, mold numbers used by the manufacturer for identification. Embossed letters are sometimes carved into the body of the mold, but for smaller runs a plate mold, with a removable lettered plate on one or more sides, was used.
Mold lines on bottles finished with a specialized lipping tool are usually obliterated by faint horizontal striations extending to about a quarter inch below the lip. The two-piece blow-back mold, however, leaves mold seams to the very edge of the lip, and a lip surface that has been ground smooth rather than shaped with a lipping tool.
A pontil mark is a circular scar left on the base by the iron rod used to hold the bottle for finishing the neck and lip. Although there are many different methods of empontilling, only two types of marks were found on bottles from the Middleton Place privy. One is a “sand pontil mark,” a roughened grainy area covering most of the base, apparently the result of dipping the glasscoated pontil iron in sand before attaching it. The other is a “blow-pipe pontil mark,” which results from empontilling a bottle with the same pipe that was used to blow it. A blow-pipe mark is a distinct ring of glass the same size as the bottle neck.
Pressed glass is formed with a plunger in a mold on one or more pieces. Pressed glass items are comparatively thick-walled, have smooth molded lips, usually with mold seams, and often are distinguished by a short, straight shear mark, like an isolated mold line, on the inside base. This mark is from the severing of the “gob” of glass before it is dropped into the mold. Bottles that are made on either automatic or semi-automatic machines will have mold lines encircling the top of the lip, as well as on the sides and base.