Northwood Glass

Northwood, a Fenton rival, was founded in 1896 in Indiana, Pennsylvania by the Englishman Harry Northwood, the son of a prominent glassmaker. At the age of 20, he migrated to America in 1880. Prior to founding his own company in 1887, Northwood had worked at a number of well known glass manufacturers, apprenticing and thoroughly learning the trade.

He joined with the National Glass Company briefly only to subsequently form the Harry Northwood Glass Company in 1901 in Wheeling, West Virginia. Also in 1901, he purchased Hobbs, Brockunier and Company, where he first started out in 1880. For the next couple years, there were two Northwood plants.

Finally in 1904, he sold the Indiana, PA plant to its managers, which was later to become the Indiana Glass Company.

Familiar with glass iridescence manufacturing methods from his work in England, Northwood started making iridescent Carnival glass formed in pressed glass molds about 1908 for a wide American market.

Carnival glass soon became their most popular product, introducing design patterns such as grape and cable, wild rose, leaf and beads, singing birds, beaded cable, and peacock at the fountain. Golden Iris was an early popular interpretation of marigold Carnival glass, very desirable for its properties of reflecting light and color in its iridescence.

Harry worked with his brother Carl, who was creative where Harry was more business focused, and he worked in the decoration area as a perfect complement to Harry. The grape & cable pattern alone was produced in a fascinating array of vases, dishes, compotes, bowls, and accessories, and other companies soon began copying their designs given the lax copyright laws in the U.S. during that time.

Northwood produced a wide variety of opalescent, decorated, and special effect glasses like splatter glass, and colors like iridescent blue and green which were not widely seen at the time. Northwood began producing iridescent custard glass about 1914 with the end of World War I, a cream colored glass with pastel iridescent overlay.

Northwood marked many of their pieces with an N in a circle or an N underlined, interesting since so much Carnival glass was unmarked. When Harry Northwood died from disease in 1918, the company began to falter until finally closing in 1925.

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