Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company
Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
First commercially successful U.S. plate glass maker, founded 1883 by John Ford, John Pitcairn and others. First plant was at Creighton; office was half a block east of here on Fourth Avenue. The company became PPG Industries in 1968.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1883 a group of Pittsburgh entrepreneurs, including John Ford and John Pitcairn, launched the nation's first commercially successful plate glass works, with its first plant at Creighton along the Allegheny River. Plate glass was a demanding, capital-intensive product that European makers had long dominated, and breaking that hold helped make Pittsburgh a center of American glassmaking. The firm grew into a diversified industrial giant, becoming PPG Industries in 1968.
Why it matters
The company's success marked American industry catching up to and surpassing European manufacturing in a high-skill trade, part of the Gilded Age surge that made Pittsburgh a workshop of the nation.
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Related people
- · John Ford
- · John Pitcairn
Themes & tags
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