February 2007 Organization of the Month

Each month LARAC highlights an Organization from the Adirondack Region
that is tied to the arts and culture of the region.

The museum’s mission is to preserve the history of our nations first major industry--bottle making.  Millions of glass bottles per year were manufactured by hand for the mineral waters of Saratoga County alone, enabling the area to participate in world commerce during the early 1800’s. A glassworks set in the wilderness above the nearby town of Greenfield employed hundreds of workers and glassblowers from the 1840’s to the 1860’s. In that era, all bottles were manufactured exclusively with hand tools and lung power.

The world-wide mineral water industry was just one of many industries creating a tremendous demand for glass bottles. America was the world's largest producer of fine essence oils.  The West was being settled, creating a demand for millions of whiskey flasks and spirits bottles to help men cope with loneliness and hardship.  Every pharmacy, every producer of patent medicines, every brewery, dairy farm and manufacturer, required hand-made glass bottles.  Machine made bottles were not manufactured until after Michael Owens patented his inventions in 1903.

Well planned museum exhibits allow visitors to view a myriad variety of beautiful and colorful glass bottles produced by strong men who toiled in intense heat for twelve hours a day, six days a week.  The demand for glass containers was staggering.  It was an era when vast commercial empires rose and fell.  In many cases, only the glass bottles remain as witness to the drama.

One entire wall of the museum's first floor is covered with approximately 2000 bottles of many colors, shapes and forms.  This is considered "open storage," and all of these bottles are accessioned into the collection to be held in trust for the public.  When creating interpretive exhibits, borrowed bottles and related objects are often combined with those from the collection.  In some cases, all exhibit objects may be borrowed.  The museum has access to collections all over the United States, and borrowing objects from members makes frequent changes and more spectacular exhibits possible.

The latest museum program is the development of a "Museum Glassworks”.  A separate building in close proximity to the museum has been purchased and equipped with torches and hand tools for teaching lampworking, a process of working with glass rods and tubing to create smaller objects from hot glass.  A full-size glass furnace has recently been installed so that students and visitors can experience for themselves techniques employed by glassblowers of the past, and still employed by the glass artist of today.

The museum sponsors a 160-table antique bottle show and sale every June.  A special area set aside from the sales floor is reserved for beautiful educational exhibits.  This popular event draws visitors and antique bottle dealers from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada, as well as area residents.  The general public is welcomed and urged to join participants in enjoying this once a year spectacle.

Membership in the museum starts at $10 a year in the US, and $15 a year for residents outside of the US. Members regularly receive a newsletter including news of museum programs and activities, well-researched articles on antique and collectable bottles and their history, and a calendar of upcoming bottle shows in the U.S., Canada & England. The museum may also be able to put you in touch with a collecting club in your area.

National Bottle Museum
76 Milton Avenue, Ballston Spa, NY 12020
518-885-7589
nbm@crisny.org
www.nationalbottlemuseum.org