Deming Jarves



Deming Jarves (1790–1869) was a 19th-century American glass manufacturer in Massachusetts. He has been called the "father of the American glass industry". Jarves joined the glass industry in 1809 when he, with a group of investors, gained control of the window glass company Boston Crown Glass. During the War of 1812, American glass manufacturers lost access to high–quality sand and red lead, which was an essential ingredient for high–quality glass. After the war, British manufacturers began dumping low–priced glass in the United States. This caused many American glass manufacturers, including Boston Crown Glass, to go out of business. In 1818 Jarves and an investor group founded the New England Glass Company, where Jarves researched ways to produce red lead using domestic sources. By 1819 he was producing red lead, which enabled the production of better quality glass.

Glassmakers kept their methods secret, meaning a group of glassmakers could leave a company and cause it to end operations. Jarves smuggled glassmaking talent from Europe to Boston, and kept a book of various glass recipes. This ended the threat from glassmakers leaving the company. He also worked to improve technology such as improving the efficiency of his furnaces that used wood as a fuel source. He worked with molds and was an early user of pressed glass machines. Jarves found the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, which became famous for its pressed glass. By 1835, Jarves had caused significant changes to the American glassmaking industry, and his Boston & Sandwich Glass Company was known world–wide.

Brief biography
Jarves was born in 1790 in Boston, Massachusetts to a "prosperous cabinetmaker." He worked for the New England Glass Company between 1818 and 1825. He conducted business from offices in Boston, and the company's factory was located in East Cambridge.

In 1825, Jarves began the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company with its factory in Sandwich, Massachusetts, specializing in blown glassware, mold-blown glass, and machine-pressed glass. He built the company into what one writer calls "the most important manufacturer of pressed glass in 19th-century America"; he stayed with it until 1858, and it continued until 1888.

Jarves founded the Mt. Washington Glass Works in South Boston under the management of Captain Luther Russell. His children included John (d.1863), James, and Deming Jarves.

Selected writing

 * Deming Jarves. Reminiscences of glass-making, 2nd ed. Hurd and Houghton, 1865.