Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 31

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360

USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y. > Part 31

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There are many interesting facts connected with the glue manufacture, and especially with the factory with which the honored name of Peter Cooper is associated, which we should have been glad to lay before our read- ers; but we regret to say that out of all the more than 5,200 mamifactories of Kings county, the present man-

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THE MANUFACTURING, INDUSTRIES.

agers of the Peter Cooper Glue Factory are the only manufacturers who have persistently and peremptorily refused us any information whatever concerning their business.

SECTION XX. The Glass Manufacture.

The manufacture of glass dates back more than 2,000 years. It has been successfully practised by many na- tions, some of them highly civilized and possessing cul- tivated and artistic tastes; others of a low grade of civilization, and making only rude articles for daily use. When it was discovered that the melting of sand with soda or potash would produce a compound transparent or partially transparent fluid, at high tem- peratures, and easily worked at a moderate heat, which could not only be cast in moulds, but blown into globes, flasks, cylinders, etc., the more intelligent nations began to experiment in it largely. The first and principal direction of their experiments was in the line of flasks, bottles and vases, which should take the place of the bottles of skin which were previously used, and the amphora, flasks and jars which were made of clay and burned by the potter's art, and used for holding wine and other liquids.

Glass was also employed for beads and other or- namental purposes. In the middle ages great im- provements were made in the production of hollow glass vessels. They were blown very thin; new in- gredients were mingled with the sand and alkali to make the glass clearer, whiter, and more easily worked; among these new ingredients, the red oxide of lead, and other lead salts, manganese, arsenic, borax, etc., were the most common. Colors were introduced into the manufacture of glass, and in the Venetian glass works, these were so combined, by skillful blowing and manipulation, that a variety of colors would be blended with each other, or appear in succession or alternation upon the surface of these delicate vessels. In this direction, the Venetians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries produced glass flasks, bottles and vases, etc., which modern art has not been able to equal; though within a few years past, the Hon. A. H. Layard, the Assyrian explorer, and some other English art con- noisseurs, have attempted, with considerable success, the revival of this beautiful manufacture, in its ancient seat in the Venetian Archipelago. In more modern times, the glass manufactories of Bohemia and Moravia have been renowned for their production of fanciful articles of varied colors in glass, these articles being moulded and the colors mingled so as to produce a very fine glass. These articles, boxes, paper-weights, etc., con- tain a considerable percentage of minium or red lead, manganese, etc., while the Venetian glass has very lit- tle of these ingredients, and is remarkable for its light- ness. Plate, cast or rolled glass has also been a very

important modern prodnet of glass works, being used for the best mirrors, windows of stores and shops, and of the finer dwellings, and of late, for glazing of coaches, for small counters for banks, insurance offices and stores, and for many other purposes. The best is produced in France; the English plate glass comes next, and it is manufactured, to a moderate extent, of very good quality, in this country, while an inferior but very strong article is manufactured in Germany. The manufacture of bottles of all qualities, is usually the first development of the glass industry in a new country. These are generally made of alkalies and sand only, and having a green or yellowish green color, or, where the ingredients are not very pure, a dark green or black appearance, the product is called green or bottle glass. Flint glass is made from powdered quartz or flints, refined potassa or soda, and usually some red lead. This product is also called white glass. When carefully made, and from pure materials, the green glass becomes so nearly white as to answer for most of the purposes for which flint glass was formerly used. Fruit cans, druggists' prescription bottles, syphons for mineral water, and the finest bottles for choice wines, champagne, etc., are made from it. Flint glass has, however, a wide field. Druggists' and fancy bot- tles, vases, colognes, and lamp and gas chimneys aud shades, as well as most descriptions of colored glass, caster bottles, glass chandeliers and drops, radiators, headlights, etc., etc., are from this kind of glass. Glass tubing is also made from it. By the addition of a considerable amount of red lead, and some arsenic and manganese, glass suitable for plate glass, optical glass, glass for philosophical instruments, etc., etc., is pro- duced. Attempts have recently been made to use glass blocks of large size, instead of brick or stone, for building purposes. If it can be produced on a large scale, and the glass thoroughly annealed, there seems to be no good reason why it should not be suc- cessful. There has been much thought and labor ex- pended within a few years past on processes of an- nealing, which should so toughen the glass as to make it practically unbreakable. A certain measure of snc- cess has been attained; the articles intended to be an- nealed were plunged, at first in cold oil, while still very hot, and the surface was so far hardened that they might be thrown about the room without breaking, but if they chanced to strike or be struck by a sharp me- tallic point, like the point of a nail or tack, or a knife blade, they flew at once into ten thousand pieces, the toughening being only of the surface, and the interior substance expanding destructively, the instant the air reached it, on the same principle with the Prince Rupert's drops. A modification of this process, the oil being heated, and the glass allowed to cool in it gradually, has been tried with somewhat better success. Several attempts have been made to make dishes, | plates, statuettes, etc., of an opaque glass, as substitutes

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

for ehina and poreelain, the articles being hardened in the same way; but these attempts have proved failures thus far, and are all, we believe, now abandoned. The glass manufacture is a very extensive one in this eoun- try. Every description of glass is now manufactured here, though the plate glass products have not been as satisfactory as some others. The imports of glass of all kinds now average about $6,600,000 a year, of which more than one-half is plate glass, against ten millions more a dozen years ago. In 1880, the total produet of our American glass works was reported as 821, 154,571, and this was undoubtedly considerably below the truth. It is safe to say that we produee four times as much as we import. Of our manufacture of glass one-half is produeed in Pennsylvania, mainly in Pittsburgh and its vieinity; about one-seventh in New Jersey, and one- eighth in New York, of which amount Brooklyn and its immediate vicinity produces more than two-thirds. Pittsburgh is easily first in this manufacture, and it is doubtful whether Philadelphia or Brooklyn eomes next, their produetion is so evenly balaneed. New York eity has no glass furnaces, and only Baltimore and St. Louis among the other larger cities are engaged in the busi- ness at all, and they only in a moderate way.

In Kings county, the industry is of long standing. As early as 1764 glass bottles were made here, a speei- men bearing that date and the name of the mannfae- turer being now in the museum of the Long Island Historical Society. There was, probably, in Gowams or its vicinity, or possibly in Flatbush, a small glass furnace from that time on, but we have been unable to trace its history. In 1833, a erown glass faetory was established in the then village of Brooklyn. Of those of later date, the oldest are believed to be the glass houses of South Brooklyn, probably that which, with some change of loeation, is now owned by Hagerty, Bros. & Co. About 1850, a Mr. Dorfflinger established a large. glass house on or near Coneord and Prinee streets. Snyder, Storms, Brookfield, Dannenhoffer and Huwer were engaged in the business at different points within the next ten or twelve years. About 1866, Mr. Hibbler, who had been in the employ of Dorfllinger, purchased the works at Coneord and Prinee streets, a brother of Dorfllinger being his part- ner. On the death of Mr. Dorfllinger in 1879, Mr. Rausch took his place, and the firm is now Hibbler & Rausch. This is said to be the largest glass works in Brooklyn, the capital invested being $175,000; hands employed, 350; wages paid, $20,000 ; out-put, $240,- 000, or more. They manufacture druggists' show bottles, glass tubes, plain and engraved or decorated globes, lamp and glass chimneys, fine bottles for Cologues, etc., caster bottles, and, indeed, almost every- thing in the way of glass hollow ware, except druggists' preseription bottles and glass fruit cans. Like several of the other glass houses of Brooklyn, their most con- siderable product is of glass globes and of chimneys,

plain, engraved and decorated. The Greenpoint Glass Works, now owned and run by the E. P. Gleason Man- ufaeturing Company, are also largely engaged in the manufacture of the finer qualities of globes and ehim- neys for gas, petroleum oils and cleetrie lights, as well as other decorated and engraved bottles, vases, ete. They have also set up recently a furnace for green glass wares. A third house largely engaged in glass manu- facture is the La Bastie Glass Works of Messrs. Er- nest De la Chapelle & Co. This house have attempted some new departures in the manufacture of glass, an- nealing their chimneys and other wares in oil to make them indestructible. After some failures and changes in their processes, they have achieved a fair measure of sneeess. The chimneys, globes, ete., are not, indeed, absolutely unbreakable or indestructible, but, through the toughening process, they are made mneh more dur- able than the ordinary wares; and they have so large a demand for their globes and chimneys, that they are importing them largely in the unannealed condition to subjeet them to their proeesses, in addition to their own production, which is quite large. In another direction, that of making plates, eups and other table wares of opalized glass, after the fashion of the " hot east por- eelain " made some years ago in Philadelphia, and toughening these wares by their annealing processes, they have been less sueeessful, and have, we believe, now abandoned it. Other large houses engaged in the hollow glass ware manufacture are the Empire State Flint Glass Works of Franeis Thill; he makes all kinds of flint and eolored glass ware, and has been in business sinee 1857; his eapital is $80,000; number of hands, 160; wages paid, $75,000; annual prodnet, $175,- 000 ; the Bushwick Flint Glass Works of Messrs. Brookfield & Co .; the Long Island Flint Glass Works of J. N. Hnwer; the East River Glass Works of A. Stenger & Bros., also flint glass ; and the Williams- burgh Flint Glass Company of N. Dannenhoffer. Most of these, and we believe all, manufacture similar wares of flint glass and hollow wares. Two houses- Hagerty Bros. & Co., of South Brooklyn, and George Meyer of Williamsburgli-make green glass wares, and mainly bottles of all kinds. There are also six or seven smaller houses running only small furnaces, and making mostly faney glass wares, chemieal, philosophieal and optieal glass, and imitations of the Bohemian and Venetian wares.

There are also nearly a dozen glass stainers, enam- elers, decorators, and faney glass blowers, some of whom make a specialty of stained glass windows and decorations.

There are not, so far as we are aware, any manufae- turers of window glass, plate glass, or other flat glass wares, or of druggists' preseription bottles, or glass fruit cans, in Kings County.

The entire production, which in 1880 was stated as $1,351,582, employing 1,884 hands, and using $952,750

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THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.

capital, is now somewhat larger, though severe competi- tion has greatly reduced prices. A rough estimate makes the actual production somewhat above $1,600,- 000, and the number of hands about the same as in 1880.

The competition has had the farther effect of leading several of the larger houses to investigate new lines of manufacture, and the improvement of those in which they are already engaged, to the highest degree of per- fection. The plant of a glass house is quite expensive, and the result in the present condition of the trade is hardly sufficiently assured, to warrant so large an out- lay as would be necessary for a radical change. The directions toward which they are looking are the finest pressed wares, plate glass, glass blocks, and rough plate for roofs, floors, etc., glass mosaic pavements and floor- ings, etc., etc. Vault lights are now made by several houses here. The glass industry is in some respects in a transitional state, and though holding its own, is not advancing as rapidly as most other manufactures .- Its future is, however, promising.

SECTION XXI. Porcelain, Pottery, and Fictile Arts.

In no department of. Brooklyn industry, have the officers of the Census of 1880 been guilty of greater or more deliberate injustice, than in the treatment of our porcelain manufactures. There are several small potteries, in which the coarser articles of stone-ware,- jugs, crocks, stone jars, flower-pots, etc.,-are made; and these, to the number of six, were duly recorded under the head of "Stone and Earthenware." There are also five or six establishments, of a miscellaneous character-one making a fair article of encaustic tile, two or three others making draining tiles, and one or two, fire brick; the whole product of these latter in- dustries, which were set down as four, was reported as amounting to $201,084, and employing in all 135 hands; while the stone and earthen ware men were credited with 298 hands, and an annual production of $194,284. But the only manufactory of true porcelain, in Brook- lyn and on this continent, the chief glory of our manu- facturing industry, in its development of high art, and its successful struggle for twenty years against obsta- cles which had broken down every previous attempt to produce genuine porcelain, was not even named. And this was not an accidental oversight; the able special agent of the Census Office, Mr. J. H. Frothingham, a man of culture and taste, had visited the Union Porce- lain Works at Greenpoint, and was so deeply im- pressed with the excellence of their production, the genius displayed in their manufacture, and the extent of the works, that he wrote a full description of them to the Census Office, and urged them to give it a spe- cial notice. It was all in vain. They would consent to its insertion, either under the head of "Earthen and

Stone ware," with no separate designation, or under the head of " Brick and Tile," in the same way; but as a separate title, "Porcelain," never. As Mr. Frothinghamn declined to class it under either of these misleading titles, it was left out, though there is reason to believe that the number of hands was credited to the stone and earthen ware establishments; but its distinctive character, and its products were entirely omitted. And yet, at that time, thesc Union Porcelain Works had been in existence for seventeen years, under their prcs- ent proprietor; had an invested capital of more than $250,000, were employing over 200 hands (they employ more, now), and were turning out fine hard porcelain goods, which were the admiration of the best connois- seurs in ceramics, to a value of about $250,000 annually. We forbear all speculation on the motive which ac- tuated the Census Officers in pursuing such a course. It was one of the many sins for which they will have to answer to the American people. Let us endeavor then to atone, so far as we may, for this neglect of the Cen- sus Office, by giving, as briefly and clearly as we can, the history and peculiar processes of manufacture of the Union Porcelain Works. For the better under- standing of the subject, some preliminary explanation may be necessary.

Writers on the ceramic art divide the finer produc- tions of the potters' art into two classes: natural or hard porcelain, and artificial or soft porcelain; the lat- ter being, in reality, not porcelain at all, in the true sense of the word. The wares of Sevres and Limoges, in France, those of Meissen and Berlin, in Germany, and all the best wares of China and Japan are of natural or hard porcelain; those of Staffordshire and the other English potteries are of artificial or soft porcelain. No hard porcelain is made in Great Britain. In this coun- try a number of attempts have been made to produce hard porcelain; among them, one in Vermont, in 1810; one in New York, in 1819; and one in Philadelphia, in 1827 (it is possible the last was not hard porcelain); one at Egg Harbor, N. J .; several attempts near Flush- ing, L. I., and many others in various places, some 25 all told. All of these were unsuccessful. The only porcelain works that have ever succeeded in making hard porcelain a success in this country, are the Union Porcelain Works, at Greenpoint. There are manu- factories of artificial or soft porcelain at Trenton, N. J., and some of the 21 potteries there make dishes, vases, etc., of very artistic and elegant designs, and vie with the English potteries in beauty; there are also exten- sive potteries of soft porcelain at East Liverpool, Olio, at Cambridge, Mass., and perhaps at some other points; but none of these are manufacturing, or attempting to manufacture, natural or hard porcelain. All of these would be classed by the French under the head of pate tendre. What, then, is the difference, and why should the hard porcelain be preferred to the soft? We an- swer, the difference is principally in the mode of manu-

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

facture, the manner of burning, and the entire absence of boracie acid, lead and other metallic oxides, or other poisonous substances in the glaze that covers the sur- face; the material employed for the body of the ware is nearly the same in both, though used, in somewhat different proportions, and must be, in the hard porce- lain, of much finer quality. Kaolin or porcelain clay, of the very best quality, and the purest of quartz and feldspar, are the constituents of the body of natural porcelain, or China, as it is more commonly called. All other wares can, and do, use more or less of the com- mon cheap ball clay. The kaolin and feldspar are in reality much the same thing, except that in the kaolin the feldspar has reached its powdered condition, by a process of nature, which abstracts the potash and causes disintegration.

Pure kaolin is the product of feldspar, which has been, by the processes of uature, reduced to powder, while the feldspar used in porcelain manufacture is still as hard as the granite rock from which it came, and has to be reduced to powder by crushing and grinding. The quartz adds the element of silica to the porcelain.

In the manufacture of hard porcelain, the kaolin, feldspar and quartz, after undergoing the processes of grinding, washing and de-magnetizing, of pressing. mixing, and kneading, of forming, trimming, and dry- ing, all of which we shall presently describe, are ready for their first baking, which will bring them into the condition, technically known as " biscuit."

At the Union Porcelain Works, the inoulded and dried wares are placed in single layers, carefully sep- arated and supported, in the seggars, and these seg- gars carefully placed one over the other, are wheeled into the upper part of the great kilns, where the heat is much less intense than in the lower part, being, as we may say, the waste heat of the lower kiln. Here, at a temperature of about 1,500 degrees, they remain from thirty to thirty-five hours, and after their re- inoval from the kiln, are suffered to cool for two or three days; when taken ont of the seggars, they are brittle and porous, not very hard, and can, if necessary, be trimmed in the lathes. They are now ready for the glazing. The material for the glaze is the same as for the ware itself, except that the proportions are en- tirely different, in order to make it fluent and flux at the same time that the body becomes vitreous. The glaze must be reduced to the most impalpable powder, and suspended in large tubs of water, by constant stirring. The bisenit ware is dipped into this, and quickly absorbs the water, leaving the glazing com- pound in a nearly dry paste upon the ware. It is now looked over and cleaned off, and placed in shallow seg- gars (which, for this purpose, are made of the most refractory clays), great care being taken to protect the wares from being warped or marred in the seggars. When thus carefully placed, they are put in the lower

division of the kilns, and the fires urged, until a heat of from 4,000 to 5,000 degrees is obtained, sufficient to make the whole of each piece, glazing and body, per- fectly homogeneous and vitrified. This heat is main- tained from 30 to 35 hours, and the wares are suffered to cool for three days before being taken out.

They are now finished wares. They will not craze, or crackle, or stain, whatever may be the fluid placed in them, and whatever the degree of heat to which they are subjected. The process of burning the soft porcelain and earthenware is, in most respects, the re- verse of this.

The biscuit, in the first burning, is subjected to a high heat, perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 degrees; the glazing, while containing some feldspar, is largely composed of lead, borax, etc. It is applied at a low heat, and forms a glaze, covering over the biscuit, but not at all homo- geneous with it, and the ware is fragile, and sure to craze or crackle if subjected to considerable variations of temperature. The process is, in every stage, easier than that for china ware, but the results are much less satisfactory.

We recur, now, to the history of the Union Porce- lain Works at Greenpoint. A small establishment, with one small kiln, was started by a family of Ger- inans, on the site of the present works, for the man- ufacture of door-knobs, etc., as early as 1854. They were made with a mixture of kaolin and phosphate of lime, after an English formula. They proved unsuc- cessful, and the works passed into the hands of a stock company, who succeeded in inducing Mr. Thomas C. Smith, then a prosperous architect and builder in New York, to loan them considerable sums of money.

The war came on, the company failed, and Mr. Smith found himself obliged to take the factory for his debt. Full of faith and patriotism, even in that dark hour, in his country's success in the near future, Mr. Smith be- gan to cast about him for some way of utilizing this factory, in the prosperous times that were to come. In 1863, he was in Europe, and embraced the opportunity to visit the porcelain factory of Sevres, in France, and some of the English potteries in Stoke-on-Trent; and when he had returned home he had fully made up his mind to undertake the manufacture of hard porcelain. The factory was put in thorough repair, new buildings erected, machinery and materials procured; and, after two years of experiment and a heavy outlay, he put upon the market a small quantity of gennine porce- lain. Finding a ready market, he increased his pro- dnetious each year, and by the application of new and improved machinery, overcame the numerous and for- midable obstacles which beset every step of his path- way. Nowhere else, either in France or Germany, in China or Japan, had the manufacture of hard porcelain been successful without government aid and patronage; but he was not only fighting his battles withont assist- ance from his government, but was threatened, in the

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CHINS

NDIN

THE UNION PORCELAIN WORKS AND WARES.

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HISTORY OF KINGS COUNTY.

very infancy of his enterprise, with the reduction of the dnties on European and Asiatic porcelain; while his competitors, who were manufacturing soft porce- lain, were seeking, in every way, to damage and depre- ciate his wares. But he fought on, expending over $250,000 on buildings and plant; buying a quarry of quartz and feldspar, to be sure of the best; building and furnishing a machine shop, where he could produce his own machinery and tools; when he found a need for a machine which would do his work better than it was done, inventing and manufacturing it; when the time came for producing decorated china, resolving to use only original designs, as he had already done in the forms of his vases and dishes; and, later on, pro- euring the services of an eminent artist and sculptor, to aid him and his son in this part of his work. Every year has witnessed material progress, till his establish- ment is known all over Christendom (better, we had alnost said, in Europe, than in Brooklyn), and his wares are fully appreciated wherever they are known.

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Civil, political, professional and ecclesiastical history, and commercial and industrial record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N. Y., Part 31

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909. Publication date: 1884 Publisher: New York : Munsell Number of Pages: 1360

Author: Stiles, Henry Reed, 1832-1909.
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: New York : Munsell
Number of Pages: 1360