The role of glass knobs in glassmaking and furniture

Magazine Antiques, May, 1996 by Kenneth M. Wilson, Kirk J. Nelson

I would remark that the cabinet work executed in this city is light and elegant, superior indeed, I am inclined to believe, to English workmanship. I have seen some with cut glass, instead of brass ornaments, which has a beautiful effect.(2)

These early cut-glass knobs were made either from solid glass blanks tooled to shape or from hollow, blown, and tooled blanks (see Pl. XIII). After being annealed they were roughly cut to the desired pattern first on revolving iron wheels coated with a slurry of emery or sand and water. They were then smoothed and polished in a series of steps, first on a stone wheel lubricated with water, then with pumice on a felt wheel, and finally with putty powder (a mixture of red lead and tin oxides) on a wooden wheel (see Pl. VIII). Less expensive knobs were left uncut or were blown into a mold patterned with vertical or swirled ribs (see Pl. IV). That some of these early glass furniture mounts were highly prized is evident from an advertisement placed by Joseph Hill in the Richmond [Virginia] Commercial Compiler of June 14, 1820: "LOST, AN elegant GLASS BUREAU KNOB. The finder shall be rewarded handsomely by returning it to the subscriber."(3)

The advent of machine pressing was the greatest technological advance in glassmaking since the introduction of the blowpipe and glassblowing in ancient Roman times. It led to the mass production of a wide variety of glass knobs for furniture, doors, and other uses, at a modest cost (see Pl. II). The knobs were especially popular in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and they continued to be used on certain types of furniture well into the twentieth century.

Despite the vast quantities of glass knobs that were produced, little attention has been given to this specialized but highly important aspect of American glassmaking. Letitia Hart Alexander, writing in the late 1920s, was obviously enthralled by knobs and illustrated thirty-seven.(4) In 1939 Thomas Hamilton Ormsbee emphasized the variety of knobs produced at the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company in Sandwich, Massachusetts, illustrating many fragments found at the site of the factory.(5) On the basis of these he concluded that one of the most popular designs produced there depicts a conventional flower with a small six- or eight-rayed star at the center. Another bears a stylized aster on its face. Ormsbee correctly pointed out that these knobs followed the patterns of the brass rosette pulls when being made in Birmingham and elsewhere in England. The brass pulls were, in turn, influenced by designs illustrated in the works of George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton.

Helen Mckearin was the first to fully appreciate the important association of glass knobs and the invention of the pressing machine.(6) The patent issued to Henry Whitney and Enoch Robinson of the New England Glass Company in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 4, 1826, is the first known to specifically mention pressing as a method of making glass. Its survival is fortuitous given the destruction of all patents issued from 1790 to 1836 in a fire at the Patent Office in Washington, D.C., in December 1836. McKearin found a copy of the patent in papers filed at the circuit court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania, where, in 1829, the New England Glass Company sued the Union Glass Company of Kensington, near Philadelphia, for patent infringement. In 1832 the plaintiffs won, and Union Glass was prohibited from making any more pressed-glass knobs.

Before the development of the Whitney-Robinson process, die-forming molten glass had been accomplished by pinching it in a plier-like tool and by stamping it with a hand-held plunger in an open mold.(7) The press described in the Whitney-Robinson patent, now called a bench press, represents a considerable advance since it uses a fixed lever to drive the descending die with greater force and control [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1 OMITTED]. While freely admitting that molds had long been used by glassmakers, Whitney and Robinson claimed that the use of their mold and plunging die produced "without any blowing...a finished knob with a hole perforated thro' it."(8) The process was described as

a new and useful improvement in the mode of manufacturing by Machinery at one operation Glass Knobs or trimmings for doors Stoves, drawers Sideboards, bureaus, wardrobes, And all kinds of furniture and other things where glass handles, knobs or Ornaments may be used & fastened by Spindles running through the Centre of them.(9)

With regard to ornament, the patent claims that the plunging die could be cut with "Circles rings hearts roses leaves fruit Animals or any other fancy or ornamental shape which has been or may be used in brass or other Ornaments, or the face may be plain."(10)

The merits of the new process, particularly in reducing labor costs and achieving greater standardization, contributed to impressive sales of knobs. Whitney and Robinson claimed to have used their process in 1827 and 1828 to make "30,000 knobs, which were sold for approximately five thousand dollars in...the principal markets of the United States."(11) By 1833 the New England Glass Company was using forty to fifty presses exclusively to make knobs. At the same time the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company was using between sixty and seventy presses to make salts and other wares, undoubtedly including knobs.(12)