Artifact: Glass window pane
Materials: Glass Pane
Dimensions:
Date: 18th Century
Origin:
Collection: Carlisle House, Alexandria, VA
License: Public Domain
Ledger Entry: Glass Pane
Department: Building
Customer: Mrs. Sarah Wigginton
Ledger Page: 19
Imported From: While some glass was produced in the British Colonies, much was imported from England, thus making such an item even more exclusive.
Product Description
Recent scholarship suggests that the use of window glass was one of many features contributing to the laborious process of producing a relatively elite home during the eighteenth century. Large windows were a way to publicly display the growing wealth of some families at this time.
Citation: Cary Carson & Carl R. Lounsbury, ed., The Chesapeake House: Architectural Investigation by Colonial Williamsburg (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, in association with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2013).; Gabrielle M. Lanier & Bernard L. Herman, Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic: Looking at Buildings and Landscapes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
Historical Price: 7 pence; Modern USD: $6.54
Product Variations
The databases record twenty-four purchases of glass from the Ramsay databases. They are priced by the pane of glass, but variations of size or quantity are not noted. The quantities range from two to ninety individual panes. Their prices ranged from four and a quarter pence for twenty-four panes to fifteen shillings for twenty-four panes.
