Roswell Gleason
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Roswell Gleason (April 6, 1799January 27, 1887) was an American manufacturer and entrepreneur who rose from apprentice tinsmith to owner of a large manufacturing concern that initially produced pewter objects for domestic and religious use, and later added Britannia ware and silver-plated goods to its catalog. He was instrumental (possibly with encouragement from his friend Daniel Webster) in bringing the process of silver
electroplating Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct electric current. The part to be ...
to America, creating a new market for less expensive substitutes for luxury goods.


Early life

Gleason was born to Reuben Gleason (17701843) and his first wife, Martha, on April 6, 1799, in Putney, Vermont. His father was originally from Massachusetts but moved to a farm in Vermont where Gleason and his eight younger siblings were raised.


Business development

Gleason moved to Dorchester in 1818 and was apprenticed to tinsmith William Wilcox in Dorchester's Four Corners neighborhood. In 1822 he took over the shop after Wilcox's death. The business produced tin and pewter goods for household and ecclesiastical use, such as plates, bowls, tankards, communion sets, candlesticks and oil lamps. By the 1830s, he was also producing Britannia ware. In 1837, the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association held its first exhibition, a trade fair intended to promote and improve the state of manufacturing in the country. Gleason submitted several award-winning entries. By 1850, Gleason's sons, Roswell Jr. (18261866) and Edward (18291863), had joined the business, now known as Roswell Gleason & Sons. Edward traveled to England to study the new technology of electroplating, first patented there in 1840. Silver-plated goods could be produced at a fraction of the cost of those fabricated in coin silver or sterling silver. Gleason's affordable wares quickly found a market among middle-class and upper-class households eager to display their wealth and taste in their homes. While pewter, a relatively soft metal, had to be cast in molds,
Britannia metal Britannia metal (also called britannium or Britannia ware) is a specific type of pewter alloy, favoured for its silvery appearance and smooth surface. The composition by weight is typically about 92% tin, 6% antimony, and 2% copper. Britannia ...
could be cast or could be rolled into sheets which were then stamped or spun on a lathe to create holloware. Gleason expanded his factory as new production methods were introduced. He imported electroplating equipment from England and commissioned the world's largest white metal rolling machine, designed by Professor
Daniel Treadwell Daniel Treadwell (October 10, 1791 – February 27, 1872) was an American inventor. Amongst his most important inventions are a hemp-spinning machine for the production of cordage, and a method of constructing cannon from wrought iron and steel. ...
of Harvard College. Catherine Lanford Joy describes the factory: A former apprentice himself, Gleason continued the practice; many of his employees lived at the factory complex, which was, in effect, a company town with its own shops, housing and meals provided for workers. He also brought over skilled artisans from Europe. Gleason sold goods out of his own Dorchester showroom and through itinerant peddlers, but wholesale orders comprised the bulk of his business. Merchandise was shipped up and down the East coast, although the Civil War curtailed distribution of his products in the South. After a boiler explosion in 1870 damaged the factory, Gleason, whose sons had died a few years prior, decided to close the business in 1871 and retire.


Patents

A major factor in Gleason's success was his ability to innovate, catering to a rising middle class clientele with a taste for mechanical gadgetry and the accessories of fine dining. His sons obtained patents for several products, including an ink stand and a cake basket, as well as several variations on the table caster, a device designed to hold condiment containers on the dining table. The 1866 product catalog listed more than sixty types of casters. They were very popular items; in 1844, the
Boston and Sandwich Glass Company The Boston and Sandwich Glass Company was incorporated in 1826 to hold the glass factory built a year earlier in Sandwich, Massachusetts, by Deming Jarves. The factory was closed in 1888 amid disputes with a newly formed glassmakers' labor union ...
, which made bottles and jars for casters, ordered 150 dozen caster frames. One of the most elaborate casters concealed condiment bottles behind revolving doors and was cleverly marketed as the "Magic Caster"; an "improved" version added a bell and an egg stand. Catherine Lanford Joy writes, "With its combination of mechanical ingenuity, artistic design, and mysterious effect, Gleason's Magic Caster is quintessentially Victorian."


Personal life

Gleason married Rebecca Tucker Vose (18051891) of Milton, Massachusetts on October 13, 1822. They had four children, three of whom lived to adulthood. Around 1840 Gleason built a house on Washington Street, not far from his factory. The large Gothic Revival-style residence was known as "Lilacs" for the white lilacs propagated from cuttings reputedly taken at Mount Vernon. The town tax assessment of 1850 lists a "mansion house", stable, ice house, and "large factory" along with other outbuildings and houses on 31 acres. The total assessed value of the buildings, land and personal estate was $37,700 (equivalent to $ in ). Roswell Gleason died on January 27, 1887, in Dorchester, and was buried in the Codman Burying Ground, owned by the Second Church, which he had attended regularly his entire adult life. For many years he had been one of the most prominent as well as popular residents of Dorchester, serving as Captain of the Dorchester Rifle Company and contributing through civil service and financial gifts, particularly to the public schools.


Legacy

Assessing Gleason's impact on manufacturing, historian Catherine Lanford Joy writes: Works by Gleason are held by many museums, including: *
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
*
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
*
Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
* Yale University Art Gallery *
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
*
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
*
Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...
*
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...
* Dallas Museum of Art *
Winterthur , neighboring_municipalities = Brütten, Dinhard, Elsau, Hettlingen, Illnau-Effretikon, Kyburg, Lindau, Neftenbach, Oberembrach, Pfungen, Rickenbach, Schlatt, Seuzach, Wiesendangen, Zell , twintowns = Hall in Tirol (Austria), La ...
* Currier Museum of Art "Lilacs" remained in the family relatively unchanged. In 1977 the Boston Landmarks Commission designated the house a Landmark and recommended that the property be nominated to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
, stating that the "Roswell Gleason House is perhaps the best extant Boston example of the transition from Greek to Gothic Revival styles in domestic architecture." That same year the last family member to occupy "Lilacs", Mary V. Bowker, granddaughter of Mary Frances Gleason Vandervoort (18251885), sold architectural elements of two rooms along with family heirlooms to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The rooms were installed in the museum's new American Wing, which opened in 2010, as "excellent examples of New England taste of a successful industrialist". The house was destroyed by fire in 1982./ The land formerly occupied by the factory is now a city park, Mother's Rest, overlooking Dorchester Bay.


Gallery


Notes


References


Sources

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Further reading

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External links


Roswell Gleason
at the Dorchester Atheneum

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gleason, Roswell 1799 births 1887 deaths People from Dorchester, Massachusetts American industrialists