The Edison Plaque

Shape: 0

Form: Luminor

Color: Colorless

Component Colors: Light Box: Metal

Type: Molded

Description: Edison Luminor

These luminors were presented to guests attending on October 21, 1929 banquet celebrating the opening of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The subject of the plaque was Henry Ford’s tribute to his friend, Thomas Ava Edison, commemorating the invention of the light bulb on its fiftieth anniversary.

p. 155

Objects of Desire The Art of Frederick Carder by Alan Shovers

What others have to say about the Edison luminor.

Appropriately, Carder created a relief portrait of Thomas A. Edison, which in turn was made into luminor plaques distributed first at a 1929 banquet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of the incandescent light and the opening of the Henry Ford Museum.

p. 88 of Thoms P. Dimitroff ‘ s, Frederick Steuben and Steuben Glass

A n intaglio panel portrait of Thomas A. Edison about the same size as the Washington portrait, seven by ten inches, was produced in 1929. This was never offered for sale, as it was a special order for about 350 pieces, all of which were used as favors at the Golden Jubilee Banquet given by Henry Ford for Edison at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, October 21, 1929

(Ill. 146).

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p. 93 Paul V. Gardner, p. 88 of Dimitroff’s, Frederick Steuben and Steuben Glass

Although Carder is generally associated with hand workmanship rather than mechanized production, he was fully versed in all areas of glassmaking technology and capable of employing that technology (pressed glass) wherever appropriate. In his knowledge of materials and ceaseless experimentation, Carder can be seen as a kindred spirit of both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. His Steuben luminors, in this context, celebrate the accomplishments and character not of one extraordinary man, but of three.
Collector’s Choice Review of The Rockwell Museum, Number 50.

Dignitaries present at the opening included Orville Wright, Madame Curie, and President Herbert Hoover, but Thomas Edison was Ford ‘ s special hero, and Edison ‘s entire Menlo Park laboratory had been purchased and moved to Dearborn as the centerpiece of the museum.

Collector’s Choice Review of The Rockwell Museum, Number 50.

Steuben made many articles in pressed glass–ashtrays; Lincoln and Washington Head plaques with metal bases; eagle, pheasant, gazelle, duck, and pigeon figurines (later cut and polished to remove the mold marks);

p. 178, American Art Nouveau Glass by Albert Christian Revi.