An American Success Story: Augustus Heisey & Heisey Glass

Heisey clear glass 4036 Marshall footed decanter

Heisey clear glass 4036 Marshall footed decanter

One of the things I love about 19th-century history are all the “rags to riches” stories.  In an age when it’s so hard to get ahead, when opportunities often seem predicated on education, financial resources, or nepotism, I enjoy hearing a good story about someone who gets ahead through intellect, intuition and hard work and one generally doesn’t need to look further than the industrial boom of the 1800s to find fascinating character studies.

Augustus Heisey was such an individual.  Born in Germany in 1842, he immigrated to Pennsylvania with his family in 1843, but when his father died, his mother left him with an older sister and returned to Europe.  At 19, Heisey took a position as a clerk at a Pittsburgh glass company, where he began to learn about the glass business.  After serving in the Civil War, he returned to the glass business, soon moving into a sales position with the Ripley Glass Company where he married the daughter of one of the owners.  (Okay, so nepotism’s nothing new….)  Through hard work and some luck, by the turn of the century, Heisey had started his own company in Newark, Ohio where three furnaces and 700 people where busy cranking out affordable pressed glass.

Heisey glass still brings people to Newark today for the annual Heisey Collectors of America convention in June.  The convention is held at the Heisey Glass Museum and a local auction house has a special sale of Heisey glass to capitalize on the visiting collectors.  While Heisey was known for pressed glass so well executed that it appeared to be cut glass, the bulk of their production was stemware or other pieces for table service, like pitchers, creamers and sugar bowls, often made to fill large orders from hotels and bars.  Today, much of this material doesn’t fetch a great deal at auction, but some of the specialty pieces that come up for sale each June are amazing and can bring thousands of dollars.  Colored glass, which wasn’t produced by Heisey in great quantities until the 1920s and 30s, is the most popular with collectors, and with examples like these dolphin candlesticks in amber, who can argue?  Still, the beautiful clear glass decanter pictured above brought more than $3,000 at auction, so even less colorful examples can be the beginning to someone else’s rags-to-riches story!

-Hollie Davis, Senior Editor, p4A.com

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