Library Lecture Focuses On History Of Owens-Illinois
BY BECKY JACOBS — MIRROR REPORTER
The audience at the Wolcott House Museum Guild history lecture on March 18 heard the history of Owens-Illinois, the locally headquartered company that is the world’s largest manufacturer of glass containers.
According to Jack Paquette, retired vice president and assistant to the president at O-I, the company evolved from its meager beginning in Toledo August 17, 1888 as the New England Glass Company from East Cambridge, Mass.
The owners arrived by train, eager to start blowing glass in a new facility erected on Ash Street in a section known as “Lower Town.”
The excitement was reciprocated. They were greeted with fanfare, including Mayor John Hamilton. A weeklong celebration included a parade and bands leading from the train station to the new site.
The mayor and Edward Drummond Libbey, the East Coast company president, rode together in an open carriage to the fun, food and fireworks.
From this beginning, a world headquarters evolved in Toledo.
Credit for bringing the company to Toledo was given to a local hardware merchant named William H. Maher. He was secretary of the Toledo Businessmen’s Committee and was credited for several dozen businesses coming to Toledo. The lure of new businesses had much to do with the discovery of natural gas in Northwest Ohio.
Part of the package given to Libbey’s company was a four-acre building site and 50 lots on which to build homes for workers. Maher convinced members of the business committee to raise the $4,000 needed to fund the project.
There was no question in anyone’s mind that getting a well-known company like New England Glass would be a major victory.
The company would bring with it experience in blowing fine glass tableware, which had been its specialty since 1818.
Due to increasing cost of labor and fuel on the east coast, the company shut down in 1877. The following year William L. Libbey, its former general manager, and his son, Edward Drummond Libbey, bought the factory and renamed it The New England Glass Company.
The company failed to prosper and was in financial trouble when the younger Libbey took over the business following his father’s death in 1883.
He began to seek a new factory site in the Midwest prior to being contacted by Maher.
He received invitations to move his operation to Tiffin, Findlay and Fostoria.
Libbey chose Toledo because his employees had earned good wages in the east and were used to luxuries not available in the smaller towns.
He liked the fact Toledo had an established transportation system using both rail and water. Toledo was also in close proximity to Sylvania’s high-quality silica sand deposits needed for glass-making.
The new facility was completed and the first production began in 1888, just five days after the final contingent of workers arrived from Boston. The company’s name changed to W.L. Libbey & Son apart from the New England Glass designation.
There were soon problems in the new factory – the furnace was defective, and production speeds and quality levels were also below their usual standards.
Many of the workers became disgruntled and moved back to Boston, leaving the factory short-handed.
During this time, Libbey hired a rough and tough young glassblower named Michael J. Owens, whose experience and ideas would one day revolutionize the world’s glass industry.
Only 29 years old, Owens was a veteran of the glass business. He started in the glasshouse at age 10 and was considered a journeyman glassblower at age 15.
His experience taught him that immediate changes were needed in the Toledo plant. He told his new boss what had to be done and that “he was the man to do it.”
Libbey offered Owens a foreman’s position and soon the job of plant superintendent.
For the next 35 years the two men worked closely together, building the glassmaking empire still surviving today.
They went through some tough times but the business was flourishing in the 1890s when they accepted a contract to blow light bulbs for a new firm called Edison General Electric. The bulbs were blown under the supervision of Owens in an old glass factory in Findlay.
Owens began to realize the need for automation in the glass business. He had already invented a semi-automatic machine to speed the production of light bulbs, lamp chimneys and drinking glasses. The rights to this machine were assigned to the new Toledo Glass Company, formed by Edward Libbey in 1895.
Owens left his job at Libbey Glass factory to join Toledo Glass in order to devote all of his creative energy on the fully automated machine.
In 1903 he introduced such a machine, which would speed production and cut down on required labor force.
Costs were reduced as the number of workers needed for each 24-hour period was cut from 18 to six.
The new machine led to the start of Owens Bottle Machine Company in September 1903.
Between 1909 and 1920, the name changed again to Owens Bottle Company as it became the nation’s largest producer of bottles and jars.
Owens’ inventiveness also led to Libbey-Owens-Ford. There were now three glass companies in Toledo and all were prospering: Toledo Glass, Owens Bottle and LOF.
Neither man lived to see the company become the real giant it is today. Owens died in 1923 and Libbey in 1925.
Eventually, the Levis family of Alton, Ill., owners of Illinois Glass Company came to fill the shoes of Owens and Libbey.
The chief among the family was William E. Levis, general manager, who would soon assume the position of president of Illinois Glass Company.
Negotiations began between his company and Toledo. It took until April 1929, when a new corporation was formed called the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. It was the largest glass container manufacturer in the world with assets of $48 million and more than 7,500 employees in 16 factories across the United States.
The company eventually branched out to include Glass Fibers, Inc., which is now known as Johns Manville, located near Waterville.
During the years there were shifts in power with Levis continuing for two decades as he diversified the company into new undertakings.
Today, 81 years after Levis’ diversification, the company has returned to basics. O-I manufactures only glass containers – much the same as those containers that began on Owens’ revolutionary machine more than a century ago.
The company remains the world’s largest manufacturer of glass containers with facilities around the globe.

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THE MIRROR’S HISTORICAL CALENDAR:

Holocaust Survivor And Liberator Reunite
Don Behm of Bellevue, Ohio, and James Lichtman of Boca Raton, Fla., will come together at Heidelberg University, to share the story of the liberation of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp during a program at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, March 24, in the Wickham Great Hall.
Behm served in the Army during World War II and helped liberate the camp, where Lichtman, a Romanian Jew, was a prisoner. The presentation is free.

MVHS Lecture Series Explores Transportation
The Maumee Valley Historical Society will host “Maumee Valley History: Transportation,” a series of lectures on Tuesdays through March 30 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. The series will be held at the Wolcott House Museum Complex. The fee is $3.00 per session. MVHS members and volunteers will be admitted free. To register or for more information, call Sandy Miller at (419) 309-0080 or visit www.wolcotthouse.org.

Georgia O’Keefe Re-Enactor To Speak In Holland
The Holland Springfield Spencer Historical Society will feature artist Georgia O’Keefe, as portrayed by Betsy Ford, on Thursday, March 25 at 7:00 p.m. in the Holland Community Center, 940 Clarion Ave., Holland. For more information about the society visit www.hsshs.org or call (419) 304-2342.

Lourdes Announces Distinguished Lecture
The fourth annual Lourdes College Distinguished Lecture in American History and Culture will be held on Monday April 12 at 7:00 p.m. in the Franciscan Theatre and Conference Center. Dr. Robert V. Remini, historian of the United States House of Representatives, will serve as guest speaker. His presentation will discuss Andrew Jackson and Indian Removal. For more information, contact Dr. Mary Stockwell at (419) 824-3741.

Wakeman Center Announces Seasonal Hours
The Wakeman Archival Research Center in Waterville will be open by appointment only until May 2010. Located at 401 Farnsworth Rd., the center contains records of Waterville organizations, businesses, churches and schools as well as family files. For further information or an appointment, call (419) 878-2576.