It is always interesting to trace the history of a great industry. Like the oak, it begins with a small seed that hardly knows its own mind, and is often more surprised than the rest of the world at the result of earnest effort. See what apothecaries did for Italy. Mediæval art and the Medicis go hand in hand. The drama of glass in the United States may have as significant a mission, for it is singularly true that James Jackson Jarves, son of Deming Jarves, the pioneer glass manufacturer of New England, was almost the first American to give his life to the study of old masters and to devote his fortune to collecting their works. The Jarves gallery now belongs to Yale University.
William L. Libbey was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and became, in 1850, the confidential clerk of Jarves & Commeraiss, the greatest glass importers of Boston, and whose glass factory in South Boston was the forerunner of the Libbey Works of the Columbian Exposition. Having made a fortune—the fortune his clever son spent in art and bric-a-brac—Deming Jarves sold his glass factory to his trusted clerk in 1855, and for twenty years this Massachusetts industry gained strength and reputation. But the trend of population was westward.
Cheap fuel was necessary to successful glass making. How could New England coal compete with natural gas? So Ohio came to the front. A few years ago Ohio's natural gas became exhausted. Without a day's disturbance petroleum succeeded gas, and better glass was made than ever, because oil produces a more even temperature. Verily "there is a soul of goodness in things evil." From Massachusetts to Ohio, from coal to gas, from gas to petroleum, what would be the next act in the drama of American glass? What, indeed, but an act the scene of which was laid in the grounds of the World's Fair!
Believing fully in the westward course of empire, Mr. Edward D. Libbey had the inspiration that if Chicago wanted the World's Fair, Chicago would not only have it, but would create such an exposition as had never been seen. So before even the temporary organization was formed in Chicago the Libbey Glass Company filed an application for the exclusive right to manufacture glass at the Columbian Exposition.