Browse Items (24 total)

Henry Stiegel’s distinctive thin-walled drinking glasses became popular in the Philadelphia area after his emigration from Germany in 1750. His technique spread to other glasshouses after his death. Pieces in the style were sometimes produced at the…

Salt-glazed earthware jars replaced lead-glazed vessels for food storage as the dangers of lead became common knowledge. Once filled, treated paper or cloth formed a seal over the open mouth. Cookbooks in the nineteenth century recommended these jars…

Sugar boxes held sugar to sweeten tea and coffee or to make unpalatable wine drinkable. This nearly-intact pearlware example from the early 1800s has a hand-painted garland design.

Students, almshouse residents, and homemakers all crafted buttons out of cleaned cow bones. The carving required few tools and little skill. The incomplete button blank on the center of this board still shows a fragment of the larger bone from which…

The painted features of this porcelain doll face point to the work of firms in the Thuringia area of Germany. Thuringia’s natural clay deposits made it the center of the German doll industry. This doll likely once included glass enamel eyes and a…

Inspired by the cautionary tale “Fair Charlotte,” in which a young woman froze to death after refusing her mother's advice to dress warmly for a sleigh ride, this German-made china doll was created as a bathing toy for young children in the late…

Both men and women enjoyed the sweet flavors and the soothing properties of tobacco through white ball clay pipes. Clay smoking pipes are some of the first mass-produced items. Because of this mass production, clay pipes served as an affordable…

Throughout the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs sold their own pharmaceutical concoctions without regulation. This was the business of proprietary medicine. This bottle likely contained pharmaceutical products or flavoring extract which was made…

A product of the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company in late 1870s, this Mason’s Improved Jar proved to be popular and accessible to many people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A common household item, the jar helped housewives during the…

Both men and women enjoyed the sweet flavors and the soothing properties of tobacco through white ball clay pipes. Clay smoking pipes are some of the first mass-produced items. Because of this mass production, clay pipes served as an affordable…