Ruffled Celery Vase - Northwood / National Glass - Blown Twist Vase
Venetian Stripe Vase - Opaline Brocade - Spanish Lace - Opalescent Vase

Northwood /National:
Violently Ruffled Celery Vases (1899-1904)

by curculiosglass

A canary-opalescent Blown Twist celery vase,
made by Northwood / National, circa 1903

photo courtesy of sfrcar
     

INTRODUCTION

           This five-part guide is one of an ongoing series of guides on early American opalescent vases (1880-1912).  The guide focusses on pressed-glass and mold-blown opalescent celery vases of 1880-1905.  This section features ruffled celery vases of the Northwood/National glass company and includes the patterns Blown Twist, Opaline Brocade, Utopia Optic, Venetian Stripe and Speckled Optic.  The guide's other sections focus on little-documented celery vases of the Beatty, Nickel Plate, Aetna and Model Flint glassworks, with the objective of providing more detailed information on these companies and their glassware than is offered in generally available resources.

          These guides are made possible by the many E-Bayers who have contributed photographs to them.  Please leave feedback by clicking the button at the bottom of the page.  To access our other guides, click here:  GUIDE INDEX. 

Early History of the Northwood Company
and of the Northwood / National Glass Works
 

Interior of canary opalescent Blown Twist celery vase
Northwood / National glass works, circa 1903

photos by nickadaemous and (right) sfrcar

             In 1902, Harry Northwood, the son of a prominent British glass maker, founded H. Northwood and Co. of Wheeling, West Virginia.  H. Northwood & Co. eventually would emerge as a major American glass company.  Between 1888 and 1899, however, Harry Northwood engaged in three failed attempts to set up a glass works in the American Midwest.  He established and operated Northwood glass companies in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, from 1888 to 1892; in Ellwood, Pennsylvania, from 1892 to 1896; and in Indiana, Pennsylvania from 1896 to 1899 (Heacock, Harry Northwood:  the Early Years, pp. 20-140).  According to author Carl O. Burns, by 1899 competition from the newly formed U.S. Glass, a consortium of 17 glass works, increased alarmingly.  In September of that year, "In an effort to counter this competition, Northwood joined a similar co-operative...the National Glass Company" (Northwood Carnival Glass, p. 8).   

         Thereafter, Northwood continued on as "The Northwood Works of the National Glass Company".  In November, 1899, Harry Northwood departed, leaving his molds behind.  The Northwood/National plant operated for a short four years.  During this period, Northwood's cousins Thomas and Alfred Dugan held predominant roles at Northwood/National -- Thomas Dugan became factory manager and superintendent, and Alfred Dugan served as plant foreman.  The Dugan brothers had worked with Harry Northwood since the first Northwood plant had opened in Martin's Ferry, and Northwood's uncle, Tommie Dugan, had helped finance the Indiana works before National's takeover (Heacock, Dugan/Diamond, at p 4).

         National collapsed in 1903.  Author Ron Teal writes that "Looking back 100 years later, National's downfall was predictable almost from the beginning," due in part to its reliance on expensive fuel sources rather than the cheap natural gas used at other factories (Albany Glass, p. 17).  According to Heacock, "despite the reported successes of the Indiana-based Northwood Works, the parent National Glass Company was in precarious financial condition by November, 1903" (Dugan/Diamond, p. 42).  National shut down its Northwood glass plant, and in early 1904, National sold the plant to the new Dugan Glass Company, which would be managed by Thomas Dugan. 

          Harry Northwood, in the meantime, had opened a new company, H. Northwood & Co., in Wheeling West Virginia, in May, 1902.  His new company commenced operation in October, 1902, and would continue through 1925.  H. Northwood & Co. began opalescent glass production soon after opening:  David A. Peterson reports that Northwood issued several patterns in canary opalescent glass between 1902 and 1904 (Vaseline Glass:  Canary to Contemporary, p. 193-196).

          All of the opalescent celery vases shown here date from 1897 to 1903.  Utopia Optic appeared in an 1897 Montgomery Ward catalog.  Opaline Brocade and Venetian Stripe were featured in trade journal ads placed by Northwood's Indiana glass company in 1888 and 1889 respectively, and both patterns later reappeared in the 1901 Northwood/National catalog.  Speckled Optic surfaced in Northwood/National assortments in 1902 Butler Brothers catalogs, and Blown Twist appeared in 1903 Northword/National Butler Brothers advertisements.  Northword/National's glassware had a hybrid Northwood-Dugan quality:  the firm's glass lines borrowed directly from Northwood's earlier designs, but patterns and pieces issued in Northwood/National's last years influenced or were later continued by the Dugan Glass Company.

Photographic Gallery of Vases
  

A white opalescent Blown Twist celery vase,
made by Northwood / National glass works, circa 1903

photo courtesy of bhwi

  
          All five vases featured here appear in a form special to Northwood/National's turn-of-the-century celery vases.  All have a bulge at the bottom, a straight cylinder and what celery-glass expert Dorothy Daugherty colorfully terms a "violently ruffled rim" (Celery Vases, p. 32).  All of these vases are also dual mold-blown -- according to authors Neila and Tom Bredehoft, this means that "The gather is first blown into a mold, which leaves bumps or ribs on the outside of the glass. It is then expanded into a smooth mold, leaving vestigial bumps ("polkas dot" ) or ribs (optic) on the inside. Glass workers called the first molds optic or spot molds" (p. 150).  These ruffled celery vases are all between 6" and 6 1/2" high, with base diameters measuring roughly 3" wide, and ruffles that spread from 4 1/4" to 5 1/4" at the rim.

Blown Twist.  In our estimation, this is one of the most beautiful vases ever issued in early American opalescent glass.  Shown above in yellow and white, Blown Twist vases feature a pattern created by twisting the glass while still hot, in order to distort linear designs into series of wispy U's that swirl around the vase body.  The swirls continue onto the base, forming a shape that resembles a five-legged starfish; this base design can be viewed to great effect from the vase's inside, as well as the outside: 

 

Base design on white opalescent Blown Twist vase
photo courtesy of bhwi

The Blown Twist pattern was named by Marion Hartung, who wrote that "[t]his lovely pattern depends upon the opalescence combined with the base color of the glass for its twist effect, for the surface is almost smooth" (Opalescent Pattern Glass, p. 19).  According to Daugherty, Blown Twist vases were made first in a ribbed optic mold and then removed and placed in a smooth mold identical in shape to that used by all vases shown in this guide.  The opalescent ruffle was done by hand, and without a crimper.  The vases have no pontil and show two straight mold lines that run from the base to the ruffle  (p. 33).  The vase shown directly above measures 6 1/2" and has an indented base that is 3" in diameter.  The ruffles extend 5 1/4" at the widest point.  Northwood issued this pattern predominantly in the form of tumblers and pitchers; Blown Twist vases are rare.  The vases appear in white, canary and blue opalescent and, as shown above, are often edged with cranberry frit.

Blown Twist is referenced in the Standard Encyclopedia of Opalescent Glass, 6th ed., which notes that Blown Twist pieces were "made at the Northwood plant when it was part of National Glass," and that they date from 1903 (p. 25)  It is notable that Heacock originally set the pattern's date of issue earlier.  According to Heacock's Opalescent Glass from A to Z, rev. ed., Blown Twist was produced by Northwood's factories at Martin's Ferry and Ellwood (p. 111).  (Heacock also wrote in the same work that the Buckeye Glass Co., which operated in Martins Ferry, Ohio from 1878 to 1896, produced the pattern during the years when Harry Northwood was employed there; Heacock himself, however, discredited this theory in Harry Northwood, The Early Years, p. 16, noting that Northwood worked at Buckeye for a mere week.)   The earliest documented evidence of the Blown Twist pattern appears in ads run by Northwood/National in1903 Butler Brother wholesale catalogs (SEOG, p. 25).

Northwood's Opaline Brocade, circa 1898-1903
first made by Northwood's Indiana, Pennsylvania glass works
and later by Northwood /National

photo courtesy of oxbeetle

Opaline Brocade.  Also known as Spanish Lace, this pattern features a lacy white-opalescent design over clear or colored transparent glass, rising to a violently-ruffled white-opalescent rim.  The pattern is wonderfully described by Daugherty as follows:  "The decoration reminds me of deer antlers.  Six prongs arise from a short ... cross bar and the ends disappear in the opalescence of the ruffle and another six drop from the cross bar and descend almost to the base.  Between the cross bars are crosses with bulbous ends" (Celery Vases, p. 32).  The bottoms of the vases lack the lacy design and have no pontil mark.  The vases were shaped in the same molds used to make Blown Twist vases (shown above), and the two vase patterns have identically shaped 3" bases (p. 33). Opaline Brocade vases we have seen have two vertical mold lines, although Daugherty reports one having a horizontal mold line.  The vases appear in flint (clear-to-white), canary-yellow, blue and cranberry opalescent glass.  They range between 6" and 6 1/2" high, with  ruffles that spread from 4 1/4" to 5 1/4" at the rim.

Northwood/National originally advertised this pattern under the name "No. 0125 Opaline Brocade," in 1900 Montgomery Ward and Pitkin & Brooks catalogs.  Heacock notes, however, that Northwood/National's Opaline Brocade was a continuation of a pattern developed earlier by Harry Northwood before the glass works joined National (Dugan/Diamond at 29-30)   A full-page advertisement placed by Northwood's Indiana glass works in the December, 1898 China, Glass and Pottery Review announced Opaline Brocade as one of Northwood "two superb new productions," and another full-page Northwood advertisement placed in the same journal on January 12, 1889, announced Opaline Brocade glassware in "four colors including pink" (cranberry opalescent) (Harry Northwood:  The Early Years, pp. 22-23, 132-134). 

The Opaline Brocade pattern is referenced under the name "Spanish Lace" in the Standard Encyclopedia of Opalescent Glass, 6th ed., which records that the pattern was issued in a broad array of shapes and notes that Fenton Art Glass later reproduced the pattern in cranberry opalescent glass.  Recent Fenton articles should be marked with the company logo, and were not issued in ruffled celery vase shapes (p. 136).

A Venetian/ Utopia Optic celery vase, with enamel decoration, circa 1897-1903
first made by Northwood's Indiana, Pennsylvania glass works,
and later by Northwood / National

photo courtesy of ronsplace

Utopia Optic.  This lovely 6" vase is transparent green glass, impressed with a rib-optic pattern, and features hand-painted enamel decorations consisting of gold stripes and gold-and-white floral patterns.  Although the vase is not opalescent, we are fortunate to be able to include it here, because it is such a key piece in the history of early Northwood vases:  Utopia Optic represents the earliest documented example of the distinctive Northwood ruffled celery vase shape that characterizes all of the vases shown in this guide. 

The Utopia Optic vase pattern first appeared in an advertisement placed by Northwood's Indiana glass works in Montgomery Ward's No. 62, spring-summer 1897-1898 catalog.  The advertisement featured a "Landscape Glass Assortment" in "white opal glass decorated with gold lines and each piece with a beautiful landscape scene executed artistically in bright effective colors" (Harry Northwood:  The Early Years, pp. 134-135.)  Heacock notes that this original Utopia Optic white-opal ware may have proven unsuccessful; a year later, Northwood's Indiana glass works used the same molds to produce transparent pieces like that shown above, decorated with gold stripes and enamel floral motifs.  Such transparent ware was described by the January 12, 1899 China, Glass and Lamps as "Venetian in enamel colors and gold, and in three colors, ruby, blue and green.  As always, these lines are handsomely modeled, and designed especially for light decorative effects" (p. 132-133).  After Northwood's purchase by National, the transparent celery vases appeared under the name "No. 225 Venetian Line," in the 1900 Pitkin & Brooks catalog, and later resurfaced in Northwood/National's 1901 catalog as its "No. 575 Venetian Line" (Heacock, Dugan/Diamond, p. 24-25, 32).  An illustration of a white opalescent Utopia Optic vase appears in Montgomery Ward's 1887 catalog ad, which is reprinted in Heacock's Harry Northwood:  The Early Years (p. 135); to date however, we have found no documented surviving examples of this celery vase in white opalescent glass. 

A canary opalescent Venetian Striped celery vase, circa 1899-1903
first made by Northwood's Indiana, Pennsylvania glass works,
and later by Northwood / National

photo by curculiosglass

Venetian Striped.  This pattern features 20 white opalescent stripes against a clear or transparent colored-glass background.  The stripes continue onto the slightly recessed base, nearly meeting in the middle.  These vases used the same dual molds as the Venetian/Utopia Optic green vase shown in this guide's preceding entry.  Like Utopia Optic vases, Venetian Striped vases were blown first in an optic mold that imported a rib pattern to the glass; the stripes can be felt on both the inside and outside of the vase surface.  These ribs distort light passing through the vase, creating a wonderful refractive effect that seems to bend the stripes on the bottom of the vase.  Venetian Striped vases have appeared on E-Bay in white-to-clear, blue and canary opalescent glass, in sizes ranging from 5 1/2" to 6 1/2" high.  The vases have lightly crimped and widely splayed ruffles that spread from 4 1/2" to 5" across.  Two very faint vertical mold lines extend from the base to the rim, and another lightly impressed line circles the vase rim, just below the ruffle.  The 2 3/4" recessed bases have no pontil mark, which helps distinguish them from a myriad of blown-glass striped vases.

These vases predate Northwood's purchase by National.  Northwood's Indiana glass works advertised the pattern under the name "Large Venetian Striped Flare Top Vase" in an 1889 Butler Brother catalog vase assortment in the colors "pearl blue, pearl yellow opalescent and pear flint" (p.  116):

An 1889 Butler Brothers catalog ad showing a Venetian Striped vase,
(second from right), as part of an opalescent vase assortment issued by
the Northwood Co.'s Indiana plant before its purchase by National.

The Venetian Striped pattern is not referenced in the Standard Encyclopedia of Opalescent Glass, which records opalescent ware Stripe patterns only as a general group.  Northwood's Venetian Striped celery vases are, however, fortunately featured in Daugherty's Celery Vases, which shows photographs of two violently ruffled Venetian Striped celery vases, in blue and canary opalescent glass, and confirms that the vases were issued by Northwood's Indiana, Pennsylvania glass works in 1899.  Daugherty's book also shows a strikingly similar vase of unknown origin and lesser value that could be mistaken easily for Northwood's Venetian Striped celery vase; the similar vase, however, has 32 stripes and a polished pontil (Daugherty at 32-33).

Stripe patterns were common in early opalescent glass, and companies producing opalescent striped glassware in the later 1800's and early 1900's included Nickel Plate, Jefferson, Buckeye, Beaumont and Model Flint.  Ron Teal writes in Albany Glass that 6 1/4" ruffled striped celery vases identical to Northwood's Venetian Striped were issued by the Model Flint glass works of Albany, Indiana, between 1900-1902.  During that period, Model Flint was part of the National Glass Company, and thus Model Flint might well have shared Northwood molds after Northwood/ National first advertised this vase in 1899.  Teal's Albany Glass features a photograph of a Model Flint canary-opalescent striped vase that is essentially identical to that shown above, and he records that Model Flint issued its stripe pattern in crystal-to-white, blue and canary opalescent (pp. 66, 120, fig. 554).  Model Flint did not produce opalescent glass before its merger with National in October, 1899, and thus it is clear nevertheless that Northwood, and not Model Flint, was the vase pattern's originator (pp. 16, 23).  More information on Model Flint's stripe vases can be found in our guide on Celery Vases of the Model Flint Glass Works.

Speckled Optic.  The vase shown above is treated with an overall cranberry-and-white glass spatter effect.  The violently ruffled rim is opalescent glass.  Author Bill Banks (ainventor), who supplied the photograph, notes that the vase was "blown in a dot optic mold".  On such vases, the spot pattern can be felt on the glass.  Speckled optic vases tend to be roughly 6" tall with 3-inch base diameters, and they have appeared on E-Bay with blue-and-white, canary-and-white and white-on-clear speckled treatments as well. We believe the speckled vase shown above was made by Northwood / National circa 1902.

A speckled cranberry-and-white celery vase resembling the one shown above appears in Celery Vases by Daugherty, who ascribes the vase to National's Northwood Works in Indiana, Pennsylvania, setting the date of manufacture at 1899-1903 (p. 33).  The vase shown in Daugherty's book is 6 1/2" tall, with a 3" base and a wide ruffle.  Daughterty writes that this vase was blown in a spot mold that "produced an inverted thumbprint optic pattern" on the surface.  On the same page, Daugherty shows a similar blue-and-white speckled vase with comparable dimensions, but she writes that this vase was blown in a rib-optic spot mold.  Given the very similar dimensions and appearance of the vases, it seems reasonable to conclude that Northwood/National issued both.

A vase seemingly identical in design to the one in the above picture, but treated with blue-and-white speckled frit, is shown in Heacock's Dugan/Diamond Glass, which identifies it simply as a celery holder with a treatment "utilizing colored frit" (p. 82, fig. 172B).  Dugan/Diamond Glass reprints two wholesale catalogs ads of 1901 and 1902 that feature Northword/National's spatter ware:  one shows an "Oriental" assortment that includes "Coraline" ware, and the second, a 1902 Butler Brothers wholesale ad, offers a ruffled celery vase with a speckled treatment described as  a "6 in. Large Crackle Vase ":

A 1902 Butler Brothers wholesale catalog advertisement
featuring a Northwood /National "Dime Opalescent assortment"
that includes Opaline Brocade pieces and a speckled celery vase.

Heacock notes that the ruffled "crackle" celery vase depicted at the center of the ad "appears to have a variegated finish" and was "made from the mould used for Venetian and Opaline Brocade in 1898-1900" (pp. 34-35).  He further notes:

This may be an opalescent piece with a decorating treatment which appears to be particles of white, light blue or ruby frit.  After the glass is gathered on a blowpipe and made smooth on a marver, it is rolled in frit (the term "frit" refers to powdered glass)  and expanded by blowing into a spot mould which imparts narrow vertical ribs.  Still on the blowpipe, the glass is then blown to its final shape in another mould.  The ribs imparted earlier by the spot mould became an internal "optic" pattern, and the frit is now part of the surface of the glass, often appearing somewhat thinner where the final shape is at its greatest diameter (p. 35).

Heacock explains that this decorating treatment is similar to that found on Northwood's Granite Ware (clear or blue glass treated with white opal frit), and that it may be related to "Coraline" finishes mentioned in the 1901 Northwood/National ad and later 1905 Dugan assortments (p. 35). The Model Flint works of the National Glass Company coined the term "Coraline," and also issued speckled celery vases with ruffled rims. (See our guide on Celery Vases of the Model Flint Glass Works.)

The Standard Encyclopedia of Opalescent Glass, 6th ed., features two spatter vases that resemble the speckled vases shown here and in Daugherty's Celery Vases.  The SEOG's description of its two featured vases, however, is muddled and surely confusing to collectors.  The SEOG lists the two vases, which are by all appearances identical except in color, under two separate names -- the first (with cranberry-and-white frit) is listed as "Rose Spatter" and attributed to Northwood (p. 127).  The second (of indeterminate color in the photograph) appears under the name "Speckled Celery Vase," followed by this curt entry:  "Although very similar in appearance to Dugan's Venetian line, this is reported to be a product from the Northwood factory.  This shape in the speckled treatment has been reported in blue, white, green and cranberry" (p. 137).  No further identifying information is offered about either SEOG vase.  We think the two photographs are simply of Northword/National speckled optic vases dating from around 1902.

 Recommended Resources:

Daugherty, Dorothy, Celery Vases:  Art Glass, Pattern Glass and Cut Glass.
        Atglen:  Schiffer (2007).

Heacock, William, Harry Northwood:  The Early years, 1881-1900.
        Marietta:  Antique Publications (1999).

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Many thanks to E-bayers ainventor,  bhwi,  nickadaemous,  oxbeetle,  ronsplace and  sfrcar,  for generously contributing photographs to this part of our guide.  Rights to all photos belong to the photographers, and pictures should not be used without their permission.  Text is (c) 2009 curculiosglass, all rights reserved.  To locate any E-Bay seller mentioned here,  just click on "Site Map" at the bottom of your E-Bay screen, and then click on "Feedback Forum" at the right top corner of the large menu that pops up.  Type the seller's name into the Feedback Forum's search blank.