Produced by the Owens-Illinois Glass Company in 1952, IN GLASSTOWN USA shows the company’s manufacturing process. At the time Owens-Illinois was the largest glass container manufacturer in the world. The film begins with images of 1950s supermarkets at 1:17, before showing the glass plant at 1:38. At 3:23, the factory interior is seen with raw materials delivered to a melting furnace. At 4:00, the interior of the furnace is seen with torrents of flame visible. At 4:50 a vacuum glass forming machine is seen, drawing up liquid glass and shaping it. At 6:30, a larger machine with huge molds is seen in action. The machine weighs over 22 tons.
At 7:44, the forming machine is seen making bottles and other glass containers. At 10:50, containers are inspected as part of the quality control process. An assembly line is shown as part of quality control. At 13:44, container molds are seen being machined and created. At 14:59, bottles are see moving into a drier after the aneling and coloring process is finished. At 15:30, bottles with special printed glass layers are seen being arranged.
At 16:10, box assembly is seen along with custom closures. At 17:17, a squirrel cage is seen being used to remove sharp edges from products.
At 19:00 the research facilities for the company are shown including the Duraglass Center. Cap design and testing is shown at 20:49. At 21:00, a miniature packing plant is shown, and at 21:20 staff looking at what can be done to improve packaged foods. At 21:54 engineers examine plant glass-packing lines and equipment to determine how to improve delivery. At 22:14, artists are seen designing various packages and glass designs.
The Owens-Illinois Glass Co. began with the merger of two of the industry’s giants: the Illinois Glass Co. and the Owens Glass Co. The Illinois Glass Co. was incorporated in March 1873 and began business in August. The company was successful and made virtually every type of bottle. By 1911, Illinois Glass had obtained the first of three Owens Automatic Bottle Machine licenses and made many other containers from semiautomatic machines. Today Owens-Illinois Inc. is a Fortune 500 company that still specializes in container glass products. It is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of packaging products, holding the position of largest manufacturer of glass containers in North America, South America, Asia-Pacific and Europe (after acquiring BSN Glasspack in 2004. Approximately one of every two glass containers made worldwide is made by O-I, its affiliates, or its licensees.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
