Who Invented the Glass Jar?

Pickles, catsup, cough medicine and all kinds of everyday essentials come preserved and packaged in glass jars. Some are sealed to keep out air and to keep in vitamins and flavors. Other glass jars have loose-fitting lids. While there have been significant improvements in glass-jar design since ancient times, only a few individuals are associated with its design. Does this Spark an idea?

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Function
- Glass jars and bottles have been used to store food and other items for centuries. Fragments of glass have been found on archeological sites dating as far back as 7,000 BC. However, because each glass jar originally had to be hand-blown into its shape by a skilled craftsman over a very hot fire, glass remained very expensive. It was far cheaper to make baskets or clay pots.
History
- Nevertheless, glass jars were important enough for the American colonists to build glass-melting furnaces at their earliest settlements. One was located at the Jamestown Colony in the early 1600s. The glass-making technology did not become efficient until the invention of an automatic glass-blowing machine in 1903.
Identification
- The most important part of a glass jar is its lid. When a jar has a tight-fitting, sealed lid, it affords a very safe way to store preserved foods like vegetables, pickles, jams and jellies. When the sealed jars go through a hot-water-bath process using a pressure cooker, even meats can be safely preserved in them. After Napoleon Bonaparte promised a prize to the person who could devise a way for his army to store and transport food safely and easily, Francois Nicolas Appert invented hermetic (air-tight) seals for glass jars in 1809.
Considerations
- The next person associated with improving glass jars was John Landis Mason. He was a tinsmith from Philadelphia whose contribution was the screw-on lids that cover what we still know by his name: mason jars. He obtained a patent for the jars, known as "shoulder-seal jars and zinc screw caps."
Expert Insight
- The next significant development in glass-jar technology made it possible to can baby food and sell it commercially. This happened in October 1931, when the Beech-Nut Nutrition Corporation invented the first vacuum-sealed jar. So while it is difficult to say who invented the glass jar, we can celebrate several significant improvements throughout its history.

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