Although olive oil, pickles, and other foods that do not require
sterilization have been packed in glass and ceramic containers for
centuries, the preserving of hot foods in airtight glass or metal
containers is a comparatively recent development. Housewives in the
eighteenth century knew how to preserve fruits by boiling them in glass
jars that were subsequently corked and sealed with wax, glue, or pitch,
but the idea of canning as we know it was popularized by Nicholas
Appert, a French confectioner who in 1809 won a prize from Napoleon for
his method of keeping food fresh for soldiers in the field. Appert
succeeded in preserving over 50 kinds of food, including meats and
vegetables, and published an essay detailing his method of boiling food
in a wide-mouthed jar and sealing it with a firmly driven cork. The
process was quickly copied in England and America, where seafood, fruit,
and pickles were first packed for wholesale in New York and Boston about
1820.
A major problem with Appert’s method of preserving in glass was the
irregular finish of hand-made bottles, which often prevented the cork
stopper from forming an absolutely airtight seal. For commercial
packers, an early and lasting solution was the tin-plated canister,
patented in England in 1810 and in the United States in 1825. An
inexpensive and effective closure for glass containers had to await John
Mason’s 1858 patent of the threaded jar seal, which consisted of a
molded screw thread that allowed the cap to seal on the shoulder rather
than the uneven lip of the jar. Home canners still use a similar
screw-top jar today.
Many Americans, both civilian and military, had their first taste of
commercially canned foods during the Civil War. Increasing varieties of
meats and vegetables were packed in tin cans in the late nineteenth
century, but glass bottles remained—and still remain—chiefly the package
of condiments, sauces, and other foods that require a reclosable cap.
These limited uses can nonetheless result in a large number of empty
containers. Food bottles are usually one of the most numerous items
found in a household trash heap. At Middleton Place, only four of a
total of seventy-seven bottles were food containers, and all had
originally held the preserves, flavorings, and oils that are usually
packaged in glass. Figure 23A shows a “One-pound American preserve,” a
jar sold at the turn of the century by at least one glass company, and
Figure 23B is a typical late nineteenth/early twentieth century olive
oil bottle. Figure 24 shows both the excavated example and a 1920
catalogue illustration of a white pressed glass container for Armour’s
Beef Extract, a by-product of the packing business produced by Armour &
Co. beginning in 1885.
[Illustration: Figure 23. Preserve jar and olive oil bottle, c.
1860s-1920s.]
[Illustration: Figure 24. Armour Beef Extract jar, c. 1900-1920s.
Armour & Co. began producing beef extract in 1885, but this glass
container was not used until around the turn of the century.]