Irving Wightman Colburn (16 May 1861 – 4 September 1917) was an American
inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
and
manufacturer
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ran ...
.
In 1898, Colburn applied for a patent for a "Glass Working Machine" that could make hollow-bodied glass containers like bottles. The patent was granted on March 7, 1899
Patent Number US620,642 The use of the patent is unknown.
Colburn developed a process for the production of continuous flat
glass
Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...
disks which made the mass production for
window
A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent materia ...
panes possible. Colburn began his experiments in 1899. In one
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
for a machine to produce flat glass on 25 March 1902. He created the Colburn Machine Glass Co. in August 1906. In 1908 he installed two machines, before the technology had developed, and in 1911 he became bankrupt. Toledo Glass Company bought Colburn's patents in 1912. He then improved the process with Toledo Glass, and its first successful result occurred on 25 November 1913. The company then became the
Libbey-Owens Sheet Glass company in 1916.
1861 births
1917 deaths
American manufacturing businesspeople
20th-century American inventors
Glass makers
19th-century American businesspeople
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