Our Symposium teaser about “The Last Rival: Durand Glass” by Gay Taylor brought a response from David Kingsley. He wrote:

“Regarding Steuben being Durand’s only competition when they opened in 1924 in today’s Gazelle Gazette #3638. It was stated that, ‘Other firms, including the Imperial Glass Company, the Fenton Glass Art Glass Company and Union Glass Company had discontinued their art glass lines.’ This is not entirely correct. Fenton’s “Off Hand” glass, their art glass line, was produced from the last week of September 1925 through October 1926.”

Gay responded: “I would like to thank David Kingsley for his comments about the years of production of the art glass line produced by the Fenton Art Glass Company.  He is absolutely correct about the Fenton dates of production being September 1925 until October 1926. I did not mean to confuse the facts when I included Fenton in the list of companies that discontinued their art glass lines when Durand Art Glass was founded in 1924. I should have better explained the problem with the date of 1924.  In my lecture I planned to explain that although we date the opening of the Durand Art Glass division of the Vineland Flint Glass Works to 1924, it was not until December of 1924 that the glassblowers actually arrived in Vineland, New Jersey. In their own advertisement the firm stated, “Manufacture of the highest quality of iridescent art glass in the United States is the difficult goal which has been set by the Vineland Flint Glass Works, of Vineland, N.J., after a year of intensive effort to produce such a line.” So in 1926 when the Fenton Art Glass Company was producing and then discontinued their art glass line, Durand Art Glass was finally successful in creating their own glass line after a year of struggle.  The Fenton firm better understood the market and that interest in and sales of art glass was waning. I hope this explains why I included the Fenton Art Glass Company in the paragraph about my lecture.”

Gay has much more information about the workers and their movements between glass firms, but we don’t want to be a spoiler for her presentation. There is much more to learn at this year’s Symposium!

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