Libbey Glass Company Plant - hand painting

This is most likely the Libbey Glass Company Plant in Toledo, which manufactures tumblers, cut-glass, thin-blown stemware, engraved and decorated glass. Libbey produced a hand-painted raised floral glass with gold rim glass that looks very similar to the one in the photograph. It could also be the Anchor-Hocking Glass Company in Lancaster or any of the other glass making plants in Ohio The Libbey Glass Company Plant, located at 1000 (now 940) Ash Street in Toledo, Ohio was an affiliate of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company from 1933 until it was spun off as Libbey Inc. in 1993. The company, owned by William L. Libbey, moved to Toledo in 1888 with the city providing a 4 acre factory and 50 lots for employee homes. The company changed their name from W. L. Libbey & Sons Company to Libbey Glass Company in 1892, the same year they secured a contract from Edison General Electric to produce hand blown light bulbs. Michael J. Owens, in charge of the Toledo plant, designed machines to produce things such as light bulbs and tumblers and in 1903 he invented the automatic bottle blowing machine. The company’s growing success was stifled by the Depression, which resulted in Owens-Illinois buying Libbey. With better management of the plant, the company was able to pull Libbey out of its financial problems. With the onset of World War II, the company began producing tubes for x-ray machines and other electronic equipment, as well as preparing to the postwar market. Libbey continued to be a profitable part of the Owen-Illinois company until the 1990’s. Spinning off the division in 1993 was a way to free Libbey of the constraints of being part of a large company, and unburden the large debts that were piling up. In 2001, Libbey attempted to buy Anchor-Hocking, but the Federal Trade Commission opposed the deal. As of 2004, it was the United States' largest manufacturer of glass dinnerware, with plants in Louisiana, California, and Ohio, as well as in the Netherlands.