American Sweetheart (Depression glass)

How to read it

Kathy Eickholt, writing for the National Depression Glass Association, describes the design as a central burst of swags and scrolls, with ovals of swags and scrolls round the sides of cups and the rims of plates. It looks like flowers, she says, but close up there are none, only paisleys, scrolls and curlicues. The plates are scalloped, with a wide rim, and some saucers and plates were made without the central design. Like most MacBeth-Evans glass, American Sweetheart is thin and looks delicate. The company seems to have made every piece in pink, and a full set in Monax, its thin, translucent white glass, which at first was almost opalescent, so that pieces look blue in places. A few pieces were made in cobalt blue and red. Antique Trader gives the same years and lists Monax, pink, ruby, blue, Cremax and colour-rimmed Monax.

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From MacBeth-Evans to Corning

MacBeth-Evans also made the Dogwood and Petalware patterns. In the 1930s Corning Glass Works completed a merger with the company, whose works were at Charleroi, Pennsylvania, and the Corning Museum of Glass says that merger began the next chapter of the Pyrex story: the opal glass bowls, refrigerator sets and tableware of the following decades, such as Butterprint. The museum’s library notes that Corning’s Charleroi plant later made clear Pyrex ovenware, and Eickholt points out that Corning went on to make Corelle dinnerware.