Containers: Cooking Containers: Glass

Glass-blowing techniques were brought from Europe in the seventeenth century and developed commercially in eighteenth-century New Jersey, where good-quality silica sand abounded. Limited by fragility and little heat tolerance, glass was used for wine and spirits bottles, carafes, pitchers, drinking tumblers, stemware, punch bowls and cups, decorative serving pieces, and jelly glasses. Home canning jars (the first were produced by Mason in 1858) and inexpensive glassware were introduced by the 1860s. Heat-tolerant Pyrex (1915) was used for bakeware and mixing bowls, followed mid-century by Anchor Hocking and Fire King ovenware.