glass: Development of the Glass Industry

Humans have used glass since prehistoric times, at first fashioning small objects from natural glass such as obsidian, a volcanic glass, or from rock crystal, a colorless, transparent quartz whose brilliance and clarity are emulated in manufactured glass.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Contemporary Applications of Glass
• Beginnings of the Modern Era
• Glassmaking in Colonial America
• Early European Glassmaking
• Ancient Glassmaking
• Development of the Glass Industry
• The Process of Glassmaking
• Composition and Properties of Glass
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2025, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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