The Poem

A paper entitled “Frederick Carder, Artist and Glass Technologist” was delivered at the 1939 Annual Meeting of the American Ceramic Society by Alexander Silverman, a prominent glass chemist at the University of Pittsburgh. The paper was published the same year in the Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society. Three papers about Frederick Carder appeared in the technical literature in that year; Silverman’s is the most comprehensive, and it still contains information about Carder that can be found nowhere else. The following statement taken from the article is as true today as it was in 1939: “The creations of Frederick Carder constitute a precious art museum in themselves and, as a whole, have never been equaled by the products ofany other single individual for their variety, attractiveness, originality, and intrinsic value.” The article concluded with the following untitled poem about Frederick Carder and gaffer Bonique which was attributed to one Bill Leavitt, said by Silverman to be a Corning workman who wrote the poem in 1936. The poem apparently was recited in Carder’s presence at an unidentified occasion in 1936; the last stanza seems to indicate that Levitt [the correct spelling] was not present to recite his poem.  [In reading the poem, note that the name Bonique must be pronounced “Boni-cue” in order to rhyme with the previous line.]

“Great moments come to every man,
A fleeting second when he can
Attain such fame that folks proclaim
The very mention of his name.
It matters not his dwelling place,
If by his skill he sets the pace
Or leads his guild in things they do-
As witness – ‘Gaffer’ Bonique.
In sixteen hundred thirty-nine,
He fashioned Sandwich glass sublime,
Attaining skill that folks opine
The very greatest of his time.
Three centuries since this ‘Gaffer’s ‘ start,
We find his very counterpart
Creating works of art anew,
Out-gaff’ring ‘Gaffer’ Bonique.
Intaglio and flashed designs
Acid-etched and free-hand lines
Proclaimed him from the very start
The greatest master of his art.
‘Gaffer’ Carder is the name
Of him who has attained such fame;
Who wrought with fire and loving care
Incomparable Steuben ware.
Our praise we add to Frederick’s laurel
In verse, which we wish might be oral,
From one who strives to reach the top
As ‘Gaffer’ in a small lamp shop.”

Joseph Bournique

To learn more about Joseph Bournique, I first contacted the curator of the Sandwich Glass Museum in Massachusetts, who confirmed that a gaffer by that name had worked for the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company. Museum archives describe him as a refined craftsman whose glassblowing rivaled that of the famed Venetians. Newspaper accounts add to his legend: in 1876, the Seaside Press reported that Bournique had blown a 68-pound glass dish—then considered a record—and in 1925 The Boston Herald recalled him as “the gaffer of the Castor place shop.”

Born in Baccarat, France, on June 18, 1833, Bournique worked as a glassblower and cutter in Baccarat and Paris before emigrating to the U.S. in 1873 at the invitation of William L. Libbey of the New England Glass Company. After that company’s financial troubles, Bournique joined the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, later working at numerous glassworks across the country with his son Adolphe. In 1907 Adolphe founded the Bournique Glass Company in Kokomo, Indiana, where Joseph died in 1910 and Adolphe in 1913.

Contemporary newspapers praised Joseph as “the best glass blower in the United States” and “the finest fancy glass worker in this country,” confirming the poem’s claim that he was “the very greatest of his time.” His career flourished in the late 19th century—decades before Frederick Carder’s arrival in America.

During this research I connected with two others studying the Bournique family: Kenneth Humphrey of Kokomo, author and webmaster of bourniqueglass.com, and Jean-François Luneau, a French scholar researching glassworkers who emigrated to America and contributed to the opalescent glass used by Tiffany and La Farge.

William Thomas Levitt

William Thomas Levitt was born on May 27, 1892, in Haselton, Ohio, to English immigrant William C. Levitt and Ora Albertson. After high school, he began working in Chicago manufacturing glass X-ray tubes, where he developed his expertise in lampworking—the craft of shaping glass using a gas flame.

Levitt served in the Army Chemical Warfare Service during World War I, then attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore before co-founding the Levitt-Ferguson Company, a laboratory supply firm. In 1929, he joined Corning Glass Works as a supervisor in Industrial and Laboratory Sales, where he became known for his public glassworking demonstrations, giving more than seventy-five lectures to professional audiences, including the American Chemical Society.

He published two rare poems in the Bulletin of the American Ceramic Society—one accompanying his 1934 talk “Flame Working of Glass.” A MIT student paper described him as “one of the most skillful glassblowers in the country,” affirming his reputation among top craftsmen such as Frederick Carder and Joseph Bournique.

Final Comments

Literary members of the CSGA may best judge the poem’s artistic merit. Silverman described it as “doggerel—but significant doggerel,” and Frederick Carder evidently valued it, as two typed copies were found among his papers at the Rakow Library.

William Levitt likely chose to work at Corning due to family ties in nearby Elmira. He and his wife, Edna, had one son, Charles William Levitt, who was killed in action in Italy on February 21, 1945, while serving with the 10th Mountain Division.

Joseph Bournique’s American career spanned both craftsmanship and management in the glass industry. In 1881, he and Maurice Contat pioneered the production of opalescent sheet glass at the Artistic Glass Works in Brooklyn — an innovation ahead of its time that failed commercially but foreshadowed later developments.

Ed Bush’s complete paper can be found in the CSGA Gazelle Gazette archives in Issue 178, published August 8, 2006.

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