Early Flask Bottle Letter Helen Mckearin 1930s Author American Glass Unique Rare

  
Here is a Unique and Original, Important Letter from an Iconic American Glass - Bottle + "Historical-Flask" Collector, Researcher and Author, HELEN S. The 94-Year-Old, Hand-Typed and Personally Pen-Signed "Sales-Letter" is Written on Geo.

Mckearin's Personal Advertising Stationary with His Office Location at HOOSICK FALLS, NEW YORK. The Letter is Expertly Hand-Typed and is a "Response" to a Contemporary Early U. I have Your Letter of Sept. Some of the Flasks which You List are already Marked as low, as I can Possibly Sell Them.

Please Let me Know, Promptly if You want any of These Flasks, and I will be Glad to Send any of Them to You. If You want to Hold One, Two For You, on a Definite Order, I will Be Glad to Do So.

Offered is a Very Historically Significant, Personally "Hand-Typed" Antique American Glass Bottles and "Historical-Flask" Related Letter. The Correspondence Is Kindly Written by Helen (Skinner) Mckearin, an Iconic Early American Glass Student and Major Contributing Author in the Endlessly Advancing and Extremely Popular Early American Glass Collecting Hobby. The Daughter of Famed Antique American Glass and Bottle-Flask Researcher, Collector and Expert George S. Mckearin, Joined Her Father, in Authoring the Most Important and Comprehensive Reference Book AMERICAN GLASS c. The Huge, Book, Featured Seemingly Endless Information about Early American Glass Factory History and Pretty Reliable "Glass / Bottle and "Flask" Factory "Attributions", as well as a Major and Currently-Used, "Historical-Flask-Chart", which Features Nice "Sketches" of the Various American Historical Flasks of (Ten) Different "Flask-Categories.

Additionally the Book Contains a Comprehensive Numeric, "Chart", which Identifies and Numbers All of the Three-Categories of "BLOWN-THREE-MOLD" Glass that was Produced at Very Early American Glass Comapanies, attempting to Inexpensively "Copy" Fine European Flint-Glass Tableware Objects, Generally. Mckearin, Teamed with Kenneth M. Wilson, who was the Glass-Curator at the Famous "Sturbridge Museum" in Western Massachusetts.

The Two Expert Glass Students and Researchers Co-Authored the Second "Extremely Important" Book entitled "AMERICAN BOTTLES AND GLASS AND THEIR ANCESTRY", which Added a Lot of New and "Updated" Historical Information to the Previous 1940 Book, and also "Revised" the HIstorical-Flask-Charts", Adding Four New "Categories to the Flask-Charts. CONDITION: The Early Letter is in "Excellent" Original "Estate-Acquired" Condition w/ NO FORMS OF "DAMAGE" NO CREASES. NO TEARS, NO HOLES, NO MARKINGS. NO WATER OR MOISTURE-CONTACT "ISSUES".

Women in Glasshouses: The Complex Identity of Helen McKearin. Posted by Joseph Schill on October 20, 2020. A black and white photograph of Helen McKearin. The Rakow Research Library, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York. Helen McKearin's status as an expert on American glass is well earned. During her lifetime, she wrote four books on the subject, conducted glass collection surveys, curated museum exhibitions, and seemed to be constantly engaged in research on early American glass. In 1965, McKearin's editor at Crown Publishers mentioned that she had essentially started The Corning Museum of Glass. 1 Recognizing this was an exaggeration, McKearin responded that I didn't really start the museum! I was midwife and then nanny for a few years. Her word choice is intriguing; while acknowledging her role in getting the Museum up and running, McKearin also placed herself within the cult of domesticity, or women's traditional roles. Who was the real Helen McKearin though? Was she the "writer, lecturer, and glass industry expert" described in the 1940 Federal Census? Powers, "housewife and spare-time writer, " as she frequently referred to herself throughout her life?

In reality, McKearin seemed to occupy two spheres. Born in 1898, McKearin graduated from Wellesley College as a Durant Scholar, the school's highest honor, in 1921. She experienced both World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic as a college student. She married Powers in 1926. As the daughter of George S.

McKearin, a passionate glass collector and expert himself, it's not surprising that Helen would take up an interest in glass. The father-daughter team co-authored two books on early American glass. Their first book, American Glass, has long been considered the bible of glass collectors and dealers. In fact, almost 80 years after it was first published in 1941, most experts still look to American Glass as the go-to reference on the subject. In 1950, the McKearins published Two Hundred Years of American Blown Glass, which bolstered their reputation as experts on American glass. Working alongside her father in the 1920s and 1930s, McKearin put her academic skills to use and began to research and write about glass, assess private glass collections, and curate glass exhibitions for several museums. McKearin was a project supervisor at the New York City unit in charge of the glass and ceramics divisions.

She supervised workers, directed research, and selected materials for inclusion in the Index of American Design, a monumental effort by the federal government to document American folk, popular, and decorative art. McKearin had established herself as a competent and independent professional by 1950. In fact, when The Corning Museum of Glass was founded in 1951, she was asked to help create a cataloging system for the collections. The Museum still uses components of this system in 2020!

To top it off, McKearin wrote two more books when she was well-passed retirement age: Bottles, Flasks, and Dr. Dyott (1970) and American Bottles & Flasks and their Ancestry with Kenneth M. McKearin was eighty when her last book was published. Yet with all these accomplishments, McKearin made this statement in March 1976: My chief activity has been study and research about glass, American in particular, in all its aspects, historical and social, writing and acting as consultant in this field-always second to my home and husband.

Why would she refuse to accept the fact that she was a glass expert and scholar? It doesn't seem as though her husband thwarted her career aspirations. In fact, McKearin blames him for making her a Lucy Stoner, since he's the one who recommended she use her own name when writing about glass because he knew that the McKearin name would carry more weight. This challenged social norms of the day, but Powers seemed fine with it.

Ultimately, his encouragement was necessary for McKearin to feel comfortable using her maiden name.