Item #8026 Wonderful Mechanism. [Small Broadside Advertisement for London Glass Blower John Tilley.]

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Wonderful Mechanism. [Small Broadside Advertisement for London Glass Blower John Tilley.]

174 South Second Street, Philadelphia, [ca. 1820]. Broadside, 5.5” x 7.5” on wove paper. Contemporary manuscript strikethrough in ink to old address, and new location added: “169 Chestnut St”. CONDITION: Very good, minor spots and a few miniscule holes at folds, 2” tear with partial loss to “u” in “Wonderful.”.

An apparently unrecorded broadside advertising the Philadelphia exhibition of “the whole Art of Fancy Glass Blowing” by John Tilley, the first known itinerant glassworker to tour the United States.

Besides being “an introduction to Pneumatics,” Tilley’s performance offered an array of spectacles: the “Spinning and Reeling [of] Hot Glass round a Wheel, with the astonishing velocity of a Mile in less than two minutes,” the creation of “a small Globe, which will form nearly a Vacuum, and fall to the floor with apparent great weight,” the division of glass “into some Hundreds of parts, in a second of Time,” a “Hydro Pneumatic Fountain,” and “a small Glass Man” who “will ascend and descend in a bottle of Water” (also known as a Cartesian Diver). For twenty-five cents, these wonders could be “seen in a neat Sitting Room” at 11 am or 7 pm at 169 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.

Itinerant glassworkers had begun touring in Europe as early as the 17th century, but their numbers and popularity peaked during the 19th century, during which they were active at numerous world’s fairs. Tilley’s show appears to have had a particularly scientific orientation (“The properties of Air will be explained, so far as relates to the Work”), but glassworking performances also often involved lampwork to create recognizable items and landmarks, and later included such novelties as glass steam engines. 

Tilley, originally from England, began his glassworking demonstrations in London in the 1810s, and first advertised in New York City in August of 1819, after which he toured elsewhere in the Northeast.

No copies recorded in OCLC. A similar broadside advertising Tilley’s performance in New York is held at the Corning Museum of Glass’s Rakow Research Library, the American Antiquarian Society, and Cornell University Library.

A rare and early advertisement for a spectacle of science and artistry by the first itinerant glassworker in America.

REFERENCES: Hopman, Rebecca. “John Tilley’s wonderful mechanisms,” 26 August 2019, Gathering A Crowd: the history of itinerant glassworkers online; “Itinerant Glassworkers: Overview,” Corning Museum of Glass online.

Item #8026

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