Oglebay Glass Museum

We finished off day one with a trip to Oglebay Glass Museum. The museum was opened in 1993 and its gift shop was filled with West Virginia only glass pieces. Today, due to the loss of glass factories in West Virginia, that is not the case. The accompanying museum is now filled only with works created in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Holly McCluskey, Curator of Glass, gives us the history of the five foot tall glass vase or "punch bowl" as it is known. There were three of them made as traveling display pieces with one of them being given to the Great Orator Henry Clay. This is the last surviving vase. 

A picture of workers at a glass factory.

  Questions:
1. We see in two pictures here that glass had significance beyond display pieces. Explain how it was used and give any other examples you can think of where glassware might have more significance.
2. Why would a glass producer make a vase that is five feet tall?
3. Are there special considerations in making a vase that large?