Topic: incredible report on the flint glass industry 1920 in Europe- Hantich Haida

[flying free]

I was searching info on Hantich & Co and stumbled upon this incredible report from
The Cornell University Library
I think written by
WM. P. CLARKE, President
AMERICAN FLINT GLASS WORKERS' UNION
Toledo, Ohio
It seems to be titled -
'A Survey of Hours, Wages and Working Conditions
Prevailing in Europe's Principal Flint Glass Manufactur-
ing Countries, Between November, 1920, and March, 1921. '



The first pages seem to be the index and it goes on for a while, but if you scroll down you start to get the reports from the various countries and the visits that were made to the glass factories.  It's amazing! the information is incredible.
I've removed the link - I'm not sure it's permissable to put it here?
But on Hantich it says

'There are only two glass factories in Haida, and only one
of these was producing glass when we were there. This was
the Hantich Company. Thej^ have one furnace with twelve
pots, each pot holding 350 to 440 pounds. As far as the pro-
duction of glass proper is concerned, it amounts to little. How-

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ever, the engraving, cutting, decorating and painting that is
done here is another story. Most of their glassware is pur-
chased in other cities. '



It talks about the museum in Haida and says

'In Haida they have a museum devoted to the exhibition of
glass. This was established by the workmen many years ago.
Bach workman was solicited to make a contribution of one
piece of glass made, cut, engraved, painted or decorated by
himself. Many responded. This encouraged others to con-
tribute to the collection. There are some very rare pieces in
this collection. We were shown through by Mr. Alex Pfohl, the
vice-mayor of the city. He has charge of the museum and is
the owner of a decorating shop. '

m

[flying free]

Reading through this report gives an insight into the social and work situations of the people in the glass industry in various countries in Europe in 1920.  For example this is an excerpt of his visit to Tannwald and Goblenz:
'There are about 24,000 so-called "home" workers in the
vicinity of Tannwald and Goblenz, where they make buttons,
beads, ear-rings, stick-pins, prisms, spoons and kindred ware.

We visited the homes of several of this class of workers.
One cannot appreciate to what degree lamp work is performed
in the ordinary home unless you had an opportunity to visit
the Tannwald district. In one home we found a man, his wife
and three small children living in one room, approximately
12x15 feet. This was also their work shop. This room con-
tained a work-table about 3x41/2 feet, lounge, bed., cradle.

63
stove and several chairs. The children were bare-footed, even
though at that time the snow was about six inches deep. The
father and mother were making hollow prisms for chandeliers.
The work-table was so constructed that there was room for two
more workers. '

[Fuhrman Glass]

The American Flint Glass Workers Union had lots of interesting artifacts. The West Virginia Museum of Glass was able to rescue all of this when the union's office closed a year or 2 ago. It filled a 24' long truck. Glad it was saved and preserved.

[flying free]

It's an incredible insight into our glass history.  There are further documents in the Cornell that detail the state of the US glass industry and presumably wages/overtime/working rules, etc as this one does. 

It's also been written extremely comprehensively, country by country as they visited them.
 Basically I think it was a recce carried out to see how much of a threat imports from Europe were to the American industry.   England was judged to be no threat as apparently their working practices were so old fashioned iirc .
But although it's from one perspective only, and just a snapshot, it's also a social document - I find that most fascinating.
m

[chopin-liszt]

It is indeed - thanks so much for sharing!

[Versacrum]

Thanks for this fantastically useful steer, including such nice detail on the domestic aspect of the industry-
there is very little in the literature on this.