By Hunter Oatman - Stanford
Maybe your dad used a Pyrex measuring cup whenever he made pancakes , or your roomie always baked her famed lasagne in a orthogonal Pyrex pan , or your grandmother had a hardening of the brightly coloured Pyrex mix lawn bowling on her kitchen heel counter . That ’s why , for most of us , it ’s impossible to hark back the first sentence we encounteredPyrex : Almost from its debut in 1915 as the first glassware for cooking , Pyrex has been a omnipresent part of the American kitchen . To fete the Pyrex centennial , theCorning Museum of Glasshas organized an exhibition detail the brand ’s historic legacy visit “ America ’s Favorite Dish : Celebrating a Century of Pyrex , ” up through March of 2016 .
Pyrex ’s utilitarian , sleek designs — and even its technical - sounding name — implied that preparation was a scientific discipline to be get the hang using numerical perfection . And in fact , the temperature - resistant glassware has its tooth root in the groundbreaking laboratories at the Corning Glass Works , a company that ab initio invent glass for industrial aim . Indeed , the kitchenware line we take for grant once provided the fabric for the world ’s largest telescopic mirror .
Top : A two - quart covered casserole dish produced by Pyrex in 1960 . Above : Left , a set of immix bowls in the Dots radiation diagram , circa 1970 . Right , a Pyrex liquid measuring cup from 1953 . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
found in 1851 near Boston as the Bay State Glass Company , the business incite to Brooklyn in brief before encounter a lasting menage in Corning , New York , in 1868 . At that time , the company was centre on technical products , particularly those need in the booming railway system industry , from glass battery jar to lenses for train signals .
However , in the late nineteenth century , glass globes used for railroad signal lanterns often shattered when the heat of a light came into contact with snow , pelting , or even just the cold night melody — a phenomenon bed as thermal shock . “ Obviously , if a signal lens goes out that creates a dangerous situation , so railroad representative came to Corning Glass work and asked them to help solve the trouble , ” says Regan Brumagen , one of the curator of the Corning Museum ’s Pyrex exhibition . ( Though founded by the Corning Glass Works , the museum is a structurally separate nonprofit devoted to preserving and flesh out the cosmos ’s sympathy of all glass . )
An engraving from the 1870s showing the Corning Glass Works ignore department . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
“ When glass , or any solid , is heat up , it blow up ; conversely , when it is cooled , it cut , ” explain Glen Cook , the chief scientist at the Corning Museum of Glass . “ The amount of growth and shrinkage is too small to be date , but from the perspective of the atom in the meth , it is enough that if one part of the object is getting hotter or colder much quicker than another part , the stress make between those two part can literally rip the glass apart — it breaks or shatters . ”
In the early twentieth hundred , Corning scientist Eugene Sullivan worked to acquire a singular glass convention that could hold this stress , using his previous experience working with Otto Schott , inventor of the first glass formula comprise boron . “ Boron atoms do themselves in the glassy web of atoms in such a way that they make the overall piece of glass change size less , almost two - thirds less , than standard shabu lacking B , ” say Cook . In 1909 , Corning began marketing its borosilicate glass products as Nonex or CNX ( Corning Non - Expansion ) .
Eight dishful from the first set of Pyrex , circa 1915 . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
During the early twentieth C , glass was n’t used for cook because it could n’t withstand extreme temperature fluctuations . or else , Captain Cook relied on earthenware , retch iron , or tin vessels that could be heated easy . However , as the company begin looking for novel way to habituate its perdurable chicken feed , its staff was guide toward the growth of consumer kitchen product by the married woman of one Corning physicist .
“ The story is that Dr. Jesse Littleton was discussing it over dinner party with a colleague and with his wife , Bessie , who evoke that possibly this glass could be used for bakeware , ” says Brumagen . “ One of Bessie ’s earthenware casserole beauty had just shattered in the oven , and she was vexed because it was only the 2d time she had used it . So Dr. Littleton brought a saw - off piece of music of a Nonex battery jar and Bessie made sponge cake in it . She finish up puddle custard in lamp chimneys and lots of other things to test them out for the company . ”
Bessie ’s experiments revealed that the borosilicate glasswork heated quickly and evenly , its transparentness made it easier to supervise the progress of a dish while baking , and it was easy to clean . The company shortly produce a new division rivet on consumer intersection and found its Pyrex channel with 12 clear ovenware dishes in 1915 . “ It was a challenge to convince people to use Pyrex , ” aver Brumagen . “ All the early ads say things like , ‘ Yes , you may prepare in it ! ’ or ‘ Bake in glass ! ’ It was just a foreign concept to consumer , so Corning had to do some persuading . ” In its early Pyrex marketing , the company purposefully used the jarring imagery of open fire visible through the clear glass to fetch the potency of its new products .
An advertising for Pyrex “ Top - of - Stove ” product from 1936 show up the flames through the pan ’s clear glass . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
The brand ’s scientific - sounding name was opt to gibe with the company ’s industrial lines , as several already ended in “ ex . ” “ When they developed the Pyrex expression , the first beauty they made was a pie plate , ” says Brumagen . “ I think it was Dr. Sullivan who require to call it ‘ Pierite ’ but was eventually overturn , and it became Pyrex since that convulsion with the family of products they already had — and , of course , ‘ pyr ’ is the prefix meaning ‘ fire . ’ The first ads had a little shred line underneath in quotation that suppose ‘ attack glassful , ’ but they drop that pretty fast . ”
The Pyrex name got a major publicity hike begin in 1929 , when stargazer George Ellery Hale commissioned Corning to produce a 200 - column inch deoxyephedrine disk ( nearly 17 feet ) for a immense unexampled scope in California — twice the diameter of the largest existing telescopic mirror at the clip . manufacture such disc required specialised material and uttermost preciseness , for if the glass expanded and contracted unevenly , its imaging would eternally be distorted . Corning physicist Dr. George V. McCauley design a mammoth disk for Hale using the Pyrex borosilicate formula and incorporating a complex honeycomb surface formula to brighten the aim ’s weight .
Though an initial attempt at the 200 - inch disk failed , McCauley ’s team successfully completed the undertaking in December of 1934 , after which the disc was step by step cooled for 10 month through a process make out as annealing . G of people flocked to railroad bank line as the giant Pyrex merchant marine crateful carrying the glass made its way from New York to California , where it would be cautiously ground , polished , and finally installed in 1948 .
Left , the telescope disk ’s merchant marine crate is fix for transferral in 1935 . Right , the disk ’s diam is measured after being cast . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
As the Pyrex squad set about to combat a slump in sales during the 1920s , corn native Lucy Maltby was spending her graduate study investigating Pyrex and the ways it might be meliorate , finally convincing the company to hire her in 1929 . “ Maltby was part of this undulation of dwelling house economists in the professional world — that was the new women ’s career at that item , ” say Brumagen . Part of Maltby ’s role was to be the interpreter of the consumer . “ She was the one to say , ‘ Hey , this cake dish is really fantastic but it has no hold , so every time I pick it up with cake batter in it , my thumb go away right in the batsman , ' ” Brumagen explains . Maltby was the one to direct out that their cooking pan were too bragging , mean you could n’t fit two of them in the oven at the same time , and something like a double - layer cake would take twice as long .
The Corning staff was impressed with Maltby ’s research , and she launched Corning ’s fresh trial kitchen in 1931 . Brumagen says Maltby immediately had a strong influence on Pyrex design and expanded the companionship ’s reach into the home - consumer market . “ She had a whole stave of mass , including field broker who would suffer with section - fund managers , give presentment , and talk to customers at once . Matlby ’s faculty register thousands of varsity letter from consumers , make annotation and reporting back to her about complaints or things that they were doing justly . ” Maltby ensured that the all - virile sales crew underwent a thorough preparation with Pyrex products in her test kitchen , as well as distinctive household chores .
Left , an ad for Pyrex mixing bowls from 1946 . Right , Dr. Lucy Maltby , Charles Oliver , and June Packard discuss a newfangled product line in 1954 . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
Although Corning still made Pyrex product for science lab economic consumption , its kitchenware became the big marketer . Corning ’s many innovations assist the business to apace respond to American cooking trends , such as the popularity of base coffee brewers , shrinking oven size , or the spread of interchangeable baking mixes . “ Pyrex pans originally had all these different sizes , and some were just one eighth of an in larger than others , ” tell Brumagen . “ Maltby view that this was too confusing , and require to simplify the line . She demand a special interest in create certain standard and make them suitable for kitchen use of goods and services . ” While working at Corning , Maltby also published cookbooks and nail her doctor’s degree .
design in manufacturing were also make Pyrex a household name . Like the Palomar scope disc , the earlier Pyrex cookware was made by hand , which confine its output . However , in the thirties , advances made by applied scientist like Corning ’s William Woods allowed Pyrex to be mass - produced using machine - pressed ice molds .
unexpended , glass cooking utensil was advertised as a utile material to conserve metallic element during World War II . Right , Silver Streak electric irons were made from Pyrex deoxyephedrine in 1946 . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
In 1942 , the Museum of Modern Art praise the functionality of Pyrex designs by featuring several products in its expo “ utilitarian target in Wartime under $ 10 . ” Around the same time , the caller was developing a note of tough white dish for military mess halls made from tempered soda - lime instead of borosilicate , making them less heat - repellent but also less probable to shatter when dropped . After World War II , this military glassware evolved into the marque ’s popular Opalware crinkle of kitchenware . The whitened glassware ’s decorative appeal conduct a backseat until the close of the state of war , when Corning ’s consumer sectionalisation realize that Americans want more colorful object in their homes .
“ They really had this craving for something new , ” says Brumagen , “ something coloured and bright and cheerful , and you saw the introduction of primary people of color . I ideate it had something to do with the end of the warfare and a desire to live it up a small more . ” In the late 1940s , competitorAnchor Hocking‘s Fire - King label also take off , as its temperature - resistant lulu made in classic Anchorwhite and green Jade - ite stuff were adopted by restaurants , school day , and military base .
From that point on , Pyrex ask distinctive decoration and was project with an increasing miscellany of colorful tad and patterns , unremarkably painted onto white Opalware glass . From the ever popular basal - colour mixing arena to knockout in turquoise , pink , and aguacate - green tone , Pyrex match perfectly with theMid - Century Modernaesthetic .
While some patterns were quick dropped due to dumb sales , others , like the Snowflake , Gooseberry , Dots , and Daisy aim , were grow for decades . Eventually , the brand also catered to the demand of household microwaves with glasswork and recipe gear toward the clip - saving twist . In addition to its intimate cooking products , over the year the Pyrex label also cover household objects like sister bottles , thimble , and electric atomic number 26 , as well as its parentage of laboratory glassware , which include beakers and trial tubes . Pyrex remained the companionship ’s top - selling brand until it was overtake in the 1970s by Corningware , a air made from a combining methamphetamine hydrochloride - ceramic formula produced since the previous ’ L .
Today , Pyrex is manufactured by World Kitchen , which certify the mark from Corning start out in 1998 , thus turn over future contemporaries the chance to develop up with Pyrex , too . “ I ’m not a accumulator , although I ’ve always had a 13- by 9 - inch Pyrex broil cooking pan , ” says Brumagen . “ That was one of the thing I arrest when I moved into my first apartment . I had to have that and a Pyrex measure loving cup because my mom and my nanna both had them , so I grow up baking with those . We hear things like that from mass all the time , ‘ Oh , my gosh , we used to have a turkey roast in that peach . ’ Pyrex decidedly has a resonance with hoi polloi — it ’s affected our national memory . ”
Primary Color refrigerator dish aerial by Pyrex , circa 1950s . Courtesy the Corning Museum of Glass .
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