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Antique Glassware and China: A Window to the Past

Growing up in a family of collectors and antique dealers made the treasures they kept and sold wonderful playthings that I handled and wondered about their use and their history. Early on, I was taught to handle antique glassware and china as if it were not exceptionally valuable. To handle it delicately meant it was more likely to be dropped accidentally.

Handling the older pieces of glassware seemed to trigger stories from older generations. The pieces represented so much more than their age or value.

Even now, I find that when I handle my Grandmother's relish dish, I smile and recall the stories of how she was able to buy it when their economic times improved in 1950. Prior to that the years through the depression and far past it had been hard years for farmers and ranchers. Cotton wasn't doing well and my grandfather had to go to work off the farm building a dam as part of a government project. There had been a seven year drought and when the drought ended and the rains finally came, the family prospered. One of the little treasures she bought during this time of abundance was the relish dish. Retelling the story and others like it opens a window to the past for my children that I will one day fling open for my grandchildren.

The pieces of history made out of fragile glass are so much more than their tangible worth. I found an author that wrote of everyday life from the perspective of women of her era. Grace Livingston Hill's first book was published in 1877. Her prolific writing carried forward for nearly 5 decades. Reading her books opened my eyes to a totally different perspective of the glassware and china that I saw in family stores and china cabinets. I had often wondered about the ornate cut-glass celery dishes that I occasionally found. They were so elaborate and seemed to be designed to be focal points. I discovered as I read one of the Livingston Hill novels that celery was quite pricey when it first became available and to spend the dime on it was such as extravagance that it was a featured item on the dinner table and displayed as such in a special celery dish that would be an oversized glass cut in a most extraordinary pattern. This one little tidbit of knowledge launched me on a desire to know more of the past of the glassware I saw.

I had known the story of Carnival glass and Depression glass. But I dug a bit deeper and discovered that it was representative of so much more. People couldn't afford to splurge on movies and amusements, so as enticements, movie houses gave away trinkets when you bought a movie ticket. The movie house would change the trinket sometimes weekly to bring in repeat customers. A dime spent on a movie would also land a cobalt blue moderntone Depression glass sherbet dish. To complete the collection, the family would attend the movies and that also accounted for the huge number of various kinds of use specific dishes. Understanding the complete story opens our minds to how women must have felt to be able to decorate a sparse table with a bit of beauty, how businesses struggled and survived, how children must have felt to earn enough money to see a movie and carry home a lovely bit of glassware to admire again and again.

Collecting and admiring glassware beyond its beauty and china beyond its purpose is handling history. Stories evoked by the pieces can be representative of a history of nations and times but also deeply personal. History that is touchable is history that has the power to touch someone.

Learn more about this author, Catherine Barbaro.
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