Forgett Archival Collection

Veronica Forgett felt that the paper trail she accumulated on the glass industry of the late l800s and early 1900s was very important to preserve the history of this golden era of American glass history . Her archival collection covering 50 years of development of the glass industry was sold at a Skinner Auction in 1990 to the Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG) for $27,500. See the news story in the attachment to this e-mail. Here was a 50 year archival treasure preserved for the museum and glass collectors. It took five eight foot tables covered with documents to display her 50 years of history. To just look at the pictures of this collection would make any serious collector envious of what Mrs. Forgett had amassed over the years.

Like my library, the Forgett collection was another huge ephemera collection that contains “paper works” preserving things such as the Tiffany-Steuben lawsuit documents, the original stock books of Steuben Glass Works, Boston Sandwich Company, Hawkes and many more glass companies.

Glass companies from this by-gone era did not keep good sales and production records on their operations, creations and throughput. For today’s collectors to sort out how it was and what was produced is quite a challenge because of the lack of background information.

By contrast, today’s glass companies keep very accurate records on how much was made, when, colors, size, etc. But back in the early 1900’s and before we can only piece the history together as best we can.

While there are other ephemera libraries, particularly those held by collectors who authored books on glass companies, I doubt any can match the Forgett collection.

When our Club meets in Corning every year we get to share the resources of The Rakow Library. However, I suspect that few of us are aware of the Forgett collection and the value of this resource to preserve the history that we honor.

One last thing. If your are somewhat impressed with the Forgett collection, you would be equally overwhelmed with her glass collection.

Bob Mueller