Some History of the Post Carder EraFrederick Carder designed the great majority of Steuben Glass pieces during the period from 1903 until about . From 1903 until about 1917 Carder was able to control all aspects of Steuben production. Corning Glass Works acquired Steuben in about 1917 and it became the Steuben Division of Corning Glass. Carder remained as Managing Director of Steuben. In 1932 and 1933 several things occurred that had direct effects on Carder and Steuben. First, Steuben had lost money for a number of years and the country was trying to recover from a worldwide depression, which significantly reduced consumer spending on luxury goods. Second, the public seemed to lose some interest in colored glass. Third, Corning Glass had developed a very bright colorless glass for scientific purposes, and Corning was looking for other uses for this glass.
This combination of problems caused the Board of Corning Glass to decide to phase out the production of Steubens colored glass and switch to this new colorless glass, that was designated 10-M. The whole design philosophy of Steuben also changed. Steuben went from a single designer who designed for numerous types, colors and finishes of glass to many designers who designed for only the 10-M colorless glass. Conventional wisdom says that production of Steubens colored glass stopped at this time. In reality there was some colored glass made well into the Post-Carder era. The last known order for colored glass that was fulfilled occurred in 1943.
At this time designers were hired to begin the design of glass objects made in new colorless glass. Many of the designs that Carder originally designed for colored glass continued to be made in the new 10-M colorless glass. We know this because the book by M.J. Madigan Steuben Glass An American Tradition in Crystal shows a number of the drawings of these Carder designs. In addition, we occasionally see Carder- designed pieces on the secondary market that have the post-1932 Steuben diamond point signature, which was not used until after the Carder era.
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