Glass Blowers in 1910 were still in demand although their wages were under pressure as the owners had taken on more apprentices than the market could reasonably absorb. The unions could control how many were admitted and how many could be recognized as master glassblowers. There was another development the unions could not control – the automatic glass blowing bottle machine. Automation attempts in the glassblowing industry had been in play since the 1880’s and while most did not succeed, there were a few that showed enough promise to warrant further development.
William as one of the Master Glass Blowers ran one more crews of teenage boys in a process that had not changed that much since Roman times. A blowpipe would scoop up a small bubble (parison) from the furnace. This would be blown into to shape and then transferred into a split cast-iron mold. The cast iron mold was modern touch first coming in to common use in the 1820-1830s. The two and three piece multiple-part molds in the late 1890s had advanced the art sufficiently so as to allow embossed lettering, logos, product name, or perhaps city and state to be pressed into the molten glass.
The glassblower blew again to expand molten glass inside the mold. Any embossing such as the customer’s name or product would also be pressed into the molten glass (embossed). Sometimes the mold seams would be remain visible.
After the initial blowing in the mold, the glass was reheated and a smoother neck and lip was formed. Before the glass could cool, the now finished product was placed in an annealing oven (lehr) for slow cooling to relieve stresses and reduce breakage The annealing oven was also a long conveyor belt that moved the cooling glass to the shipping department. In the the shipping department, teams of teenage girls and women wrapped the bottles in paper, put them in cases and sent them on their way.
A skilled team could produce 2 or 3 bottles a minute, 180 bottles per hour, or perhaps 2000 bottles per shift. Some estimates put a very skilled team producing a bottle every 20 seconds or slightly more than 4000 bottles a shift.
In 1910 the glass business could not exist without teenagers, lots of teenagers to do the hot and dangerous work. But the glass business was no different than many other American businesses of the day. They all depended on an ample supply of teenagers to staff the business.
The first successful automatic bottle blowing machine was introduced in 1904 and could produce some 17,000 bottles in a day. Clearly, only its cost precluded the industry from adopting it. The traditional glass blowers hung on, competing by cutting costs, and working longer for lower wages. World War I distracted the glass industry for awhile but the advent of Prohibition in 1920 finished the traditional glass factories by destroying the beer and liqueurs industries and their demand for bottles.
Glass Blowing Video This short video shows the Owens Glass Blower. Included is a short clip of a glass blower and apprentice using a split mold to hand blow some bottles.
William Birchmire was out of a job. It had taken less than 40 years to go from apprentice in 1880, to master glass blower in 1897, to unemployed in 1920. The census of 1920 lists his occupation as laborer but he went to work at local department store soon after. He worked on the loading dock and deliveries until his death in 1941.