Searching for Clarity (and Lead) in Colorless Colonial Glass Tableware from Southern Maryland and Virginia's Northern Neck

Summary

In the late 17th century, most glass tableware used in England was imported soda-based glass until a domestically produced potash-lead based glass became available in the late 1670s. This English lead glass would go on to dominate glass tableware of the 18th century. When did colonists in Southern Maryland and the Northern Neck of Virginia begin importing and using this English lead glass? Determining when lead glass began appearing required diving into collections of glass at several collection repositories to identify whether any late 17th-century colonial glass contained lead, as well as temporally diagnostic decorative elements useful to separate potential early lead glass from 18th-century forms. This research indicated that the sea change in glass tableware may have begun in this region by sometime in the 1690s. By 1700, the majority of glass tableware found on these colonial tables would have been lead glass.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Boxed but not Forgotten (Again!): The Importance of Collections-Driven Research   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 987