In 1825 Deming Jarvis, who had been one of the principals in early and important glassmaking ventures in Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1814, established, with a newly formed group, the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company at Sandwich on Cape Cod. Under the direction of Jarvis, a man of ingenuity and foresight, the company achieved distinction and success almost immediately.

In addition to the advantages which Charles Francis Adams attributed to the location: the immediate availability of inexpensive wood fuel for the furnaces, the healthiness of the climate, and access to markets (below, p. 217), the choice of site was a sound one because its navigable stream, emptying into the sea, accommodated large vessels laden with the raw materials needed for manufacture. But Jarvis’ success derived as much from his business policies and technical abilities. He provided at Sandwich an early example of the benevolent paternalism that was to characterize much 19th-century industrial enterprise. He built not only a factory but a village for his workers that in a few years numbered dwelling houses for two xviiihundred and fifty workers, as well as a church and a general store. His wage scale was higher than the average scale and the working conditions provided were favorable. Moreover, by following a policy of full production not dependent on seasonal fluctuation in sales he avoided layoffs.

The final ingredient that gave Sandwich a dominant place in the glass industry in the United States for most of the sixty-three years of the company’s existence was Jarvis’ ingenuity in bringing the art of pressing glass, a new technique, to its full potential through the patents he secured from 1828 onward. As Charles Francis Adams observed, the process was indeed “ingenious and American.” On Jarvis and Sandwich, see Kenneth M. Wilson, Glass in New England, Sturbridge, Massachusetts, 1969, p. 3, 8, 35–43 passim; also Ruth Lee Webb, Sandwich Glass: The History of the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, Framingham, Massachusetts, 1939; George S. and Helen McKearin, American Glass, New York, 1941.

The wood engraving of the Sandwich factory is in the Boston Bewick Company’s American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, 1:530 (August 1835).