Fragile and Fanciful: The Story of Nova Scotia Glass

In the last two decades of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century, glass manufacturing was a unique enterprise in Canada. Beginning with the founding of the Nova Scotia Glass Company in 1881, the glass factories of Nova Scotia made clear tableware at a time when it was not made anywhere else in Canada.

By the 1800s, people had been making glass for more than 4,000 years. Before that, however, the mass production of glass was not technically possible. Pressing machine...