The First Lady of Glass,

Elizabeth Degenhart,

Crystal Art Glass 

Meeting Elizabeth Degenhart

My passion for collectible art glass started at a young age.  I loved the look of the light streaming through the glass and creating patterns on the walls and rugs.  I grew up in an area of Ohio where the glass factories were only a few hours away and my family would visit them on weekend trips.  As a small child I could identify Mosser, Fenton, Summit Art glass and more.

Jabe Tarter, a local antiques and glass expert, wrote a column for the Akron Beacon Journal extolling the virtues of her glass.  Elizabeth Degenhart  was producing glass after the death of her husband, John.  She proclaimed herself the first lady of glass, even though she was preceeded by Gertrude Gentile in the late 1940's of Gentile Glass in West Virginia.

My family added her factory to our list and we piled into a car and headed for Cambridge, Ohio. From the minute I walked into her factory store I was hooked.  It was attached to her factory and you could see Boyd busy at work pouring and heating the molds of glass.  Her factory store was actually an old storage garage where she had boxes and boxes of glass treasures wrapped up in newspaper.  Some of the glass was displayed on long tables, some were hidden under the tables in boxes. It looked like chaos, but Mrs. D knew where every piece of glass was located.  Mrs. Degenhart held court on an old beat up chair and she held an old cigar box on her lap to make change. She looked like a sweet grandma with her apple cheeks, her no nonsense glasses and her plain frocks. She would jump up and explain her glass and her molds and her eyes would twinkle when she described the color and the process of glassmaking.  She held up each piece up to the light and insisted you look at it.  If she liked you, she's pull out special pieces from her treasures, special pieces of glass that came through production with unusual marbling or color variations.  She'd say that this piece will be worth more money someday, so take this one instead.  And if she really liked you, she'd save you pieces that she'd put aside for her favorite collectors. 

She and John had no children, so her niece and her friends helped her in the store.  She would sit back in her chair clutching her cigar box and tell her workers to pull out various pieces of glass when she recognized her dealers and collectors. 

She kept pieces of each item she produced for her museum so that her glass would be preserved after her death.  The museum is operating in Cambridge, Ohio.

I became infatuated with her owls.   I learned all the colors by heart and spent years looking for pieces for my collection.  She taught me that certain pieces of her glass smelled like vinegar and some would sweat in the heat because of the glass making process. Some owls felt a little bit oily, again due to the glass making process.  She taught me you not only appreciate glass with your eyes, but with your sense of touch. Slag was the color produced by mixing various colors together.  End of the day slag was when you mixed the colors you poured that day. She explained how glass was frosted.  And she loved her carnival colors.

Bernard Boyd was her glassmaker.  She designed many of the molds herself and she would have Boyd come out and show you what he was running at the moment. 

She had tables of salt licks, hen on nests, tooth pick holders and wine glass goblets. I fell in love with her Priscilla dolls, bicentennial bells and of course, Poochie. She gave me one of the small plates where she was immortalized as Elizabeth Degenhart, the first lady of glass.

History of Degenhart Glass

Charles Degenhart, John's father was born in Germany in 1845 and was apprenticed to glass making at age 10.  By age 15, he was a mold maker and worked as a mold maker in southern Germany.  Charles came to the USA at age 30 and settled in Wheeling, West Virginia where many glass companies are still operating.  He worked as a mold maker until his death in 1901.

John started working in the glass factories when he was only nine.  By the time he was 15, he started working at the Cambridge Glass Company in Cambridge, Ohio.  He worked there for 45 years gaining a reputation for producing unique paperweights. He and his wife Elizabeth opened their own factory in 1947, the Crystal Art Glass Company.

John and Elizabeth had dreamed of owning their own factory since they first met.  Elizabeth became an antique dealer to help finance their dream of their own  factory.  John passed away in 1964 and Elizabeth kept the factory open until she passed away in 1978 at the age of 89.  She designed many of the molds herself after John's passing and increased the colors poured into the molds.  She named the colors herself.  Her unique blend of colors and some of the darker colors brought collectors from far and wide.  She produced 145 different colors of glass. 

Elizabeth also developed the trademark D inside of a heart to show the glass produced after 1964.  After her death, the molds were sold and the trademark D with the heart were removed. 

The Glass Marks

The D inset in the heart was used on to mark the glass starting around 1972.  Prior to 1972, the only glass marked were the owls.  However, some pieces were hand stamped with a block letter D when they came out of the mold from 1967 to 1972.  The signature D in the heart was used from 1972 to 1978.  A sticker with the Degenhart logo was used on some glass in the 1970's.

Partial List of Degenhart Glass Colors

                     

Poochie                                      Small crystal plate                     Priscilla in RoseMarie

The Degenhart Museum

The Degenhart Museum is called the Degenhart Paperweight and Glass Museum and is located at Interstate 77 and state route 22 in Cambridge, Ohio.

The collection of glass is from Mrs. Degenhart's personal collection. You can buy pieces of glass done in new molds that are done in the Degenhart style. All of the new museum items that are produced have a D in the heart with a line underneath to show it came from the museum and not the original factory.  Mosser glass is producing the glass for sale in the museum.