Glassworks Cottage Industry and Historical Inaccuracies

Life as a Glassworker

A typical Glassworker was a white European, many of which had German, French and English ancestry. Women didn’t work in the glassworks until the nineteen hundreds, right before the glassworks was mechanized, and may have worked in packaging or bookkeeping for the company beforehand. African Americans began working in the glassworks around the 1940s. As a glassworker, in what is current day Glassboro, life was tough. Inside, work conditions were atrocious with little ventilation and the searing hellish heat of the furnaces. Generation to generation families was trapped and almost enslaved by the Glassworks, paying them only in company script currency so they could not save up to one day retire or leave, as their money was worthless outside of the general store or other Glassworks businesses.
Everything down to the houses that they owned was controlled by the Glassworks, which they were charged rent to live in. This was a requirement to work as a glassworker. The worker’s salvation came in the form of what appeared to be a curse; machinery. The introduction of machinery caused a major change in the glass industry as instead of glassmaking requiring dozens of skilled workers to manufacture a glass, the majority of the work could be carried out with machines that did not require skilled laborers to operate. The workers detested automation and wanted their jobs in the glassworks to remain safe. To cut costs and increase their profit margin the Glassworks implemented machinery and many of the glassworkers were fired and had to find other jobs. In the aftermath, workers detested the creator of the machines. Unbeknownst to the workers, this was a blessing in disguise as their new jobs were not holding them hostage and for the betterment of their lineage, they escaped the tyranny of the Glass companies.

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