Cambridge 1955-58 from Ads and Trade Journals

Cambridge Glass Company
Issue No. 183 - July 1988

Editor's Note: In lieu of an article by Mark Nye this month, we are reprinting pages of Trade Journal reports depicting Cambridge production during the 1955-1958 reopen period. Hope you enjoy! In addition, there are eight pages of advertisements from the 1955-1958 timeframe. These are on a separate page as they may take a long time to load on a dial-up connection.

Cambridge resumes production
Crockery & Glass Journal, May 1955

At the end of March, fires were lighted in the furnaces of the 53-year-old Cambridge Glass Co., Cambridge, Ohio, and production was resumed. The occasion was a big one; resumption of operations will mean employment for 400 former workers and the continuation of a fine and well known line of handmade glass.

Prior to its shutdown in July of last year. the company had an annual payroll of $1,250,000. The new management expects that the new annual payroll will be $2,000,000.

At a large luncheon for federal, state and local civic leaders, Cambridge's new president, K. Theodore Korn, a well known management consultant, reviewed what had happened to make the firm active again. After its shutdown, the assets of the firm were roll purchased by Sydney L. Albert, a nationally known Akron, Ohio, industrialist. Former workers of the company then conducted a survey to see if they could raise local capital. When the survey indicated that such a movement would be successful, the new Cambridge Glass Co. was incorporated. Former employees have signed up to purchase more than $260,000 worth of stock through payroll deduction, and the business community has backed up the proposal with outright purchases of stock.

An unusual feature of the effort to get the company back in business was the canvassing of the community for stock purchases by the wives and women relatives of former employees. The Women's Task Force met with a fine response.

Directors of the new company are Sydney L. Albert, who recently became president of Bellanca Aircraft Corp.; Frederick A. Schultze, president of the Cambridge Bank; Herschel J. Hancock, president of the La-Flo Cut Class Co.; Howard Fenwick, an employee in the mold-making department who was selected by the employee stockholders; and Frank C. Leyshon, a Cambridge attorney, who is also Secretary of the company.

Thomas J. Walshe, Jr., for many years a sales representative for Cambridge, is vice president in charge of sales; Edward Korach, of Akron, Ohio, vice president of Seiberling Latex Products, Inc., is treasurer. Clark Gamble, with Cambridge for many years, is vice president in charge of manufacturing. In rounding out the top management team, president Korn promoted Mary Martha Mitchell, long time executive secretary, to the position of assistant to the president.

Crockery & Glass Journal, July 1956

Cambridge, Ohio
Cambridge, being the county seat of Guernsey County, we stopped to admire the typical Ohio courthouse which stands in the square before we went on to see the Cambridge Glass Co. T. M. Walshe, just back from a business trip, told us about a selling plan whereby dealers can sell their customers fill ins on favorite patterns.

The firm's old patterns as well as new are being listed; on all listed patterns, deliveries on special orders will be made twice a year, direct to the customer or to the store, which ever is preferred. The company is proud of the editorial attention the "wedding ring" cutting on its stemware is getting; seems it chimes the modern note and the traditional note in perfect harmony. Here's how the trading up retailers are aware of its striking in glass: one of the most successful Cambridge punch bowl sets retails at $75!

As many stores know, Cambridge has an excellent exhibit of glassware making, so elaborate with its miniature furnaces, implements, charts and pictures that it travels from place to place whenever such educational material is wanted.