Pressed glass club member organizes 75th anniversary exhibit

When Emmy Lou John was growing up in the 1950s and needed braces on her teeth, the problem caused a dilemma for her family of modest means. Her mother said she would sell her pressed glass collection to pay for the braces.

John wouldn't hear of it. "You will not sell your pressed glass collection," she told her mother. "I'll go in my life with crooked teeth."

John's parents scraped up the money without selling the collection, and John is the proud owner of the collection today.

"For my second wedding anniversary, I received the pressed glass," she said.

Some of the pieces John received will be on display in an exhibit marking the 75th anniversary of the Mid-West Early American Pressed Glass Club. The display opens Sept. 19 and runs through Oct. 12 at the Aurora Historical Society.

John, the club member who organized the exhibit, said both her mother, in Milwaukee, and her aunt, in Aurora, collected pressed glass, but it wasn't its monetary value that made it precious to them.

"My parents and my aunt were not rich people," she said. "To spend 10 cents or 20 cents, which would have been a whole lunch meal, was very exciting for them."

Developed in the 1820s as an inexpensive alternative to blown glass, pressed glass soon gained a following of its own, said Dennis Buck, senior curator at the Aurora Historical Society.

"The pressed glass took on its own identity," he said.

"By using the press (to push the glass into molds), you could force the glass into patterns that would have been virtually if not completely impossible by blowing."

The popularity of the pretty glass that reflected light continued through the Victorian Age to about 1920.

An inexpensive later version of it was the Depression glass of the late 1920s and 1930s, which often was given away as a promotional item by businesses to entice people to buy their merchandise. The so-called carnival glass of the early 20th century got its name because it commonly was used as prizes at carnivals.

Sometime around World War II, pressed glass began to be a collectors' item, Buck said.

"A lot of people probably have pieces like this at home and don't even know what it is," he said.

The members of the Mid-West Early American Pressed Glass Club know what it is. Many members, like John, inherited parts of their collection from family members.

"We have some third generations members," she said.

Founded in Aurora in 1933, the club now has 65 members in Aurora, Naperville, Sugar Grove, Sandwich, Plano and Big Rock. Membership is by invitation.

Over the years, the members have shared their fascination with pressed glass in a display case at the Aurora Public Library. But the exhibit at the Aurora Historical Society, entitled "Captured Light," will be much larger.

John said the exhibit will feature an array of pressed glass with most of it dating from the 1870s to the 1930s Depression era. Included will be about 130 goblets, seven tables set with China and pressed glass, and two or three children's tables with doll China and glass sets.

The exhibit also will have a collection of hats, glass pieces that looked like inverted top hats, and of salts. Salts, John explained, were glass containers that held salt before saltshakers came into use. A table set for dinner might have a master salt and individual salts at each place, often with a spoon to take out the salt.

"There's a vast number of patterns of pressed glass," she said.

The glass John received from her mother has a daisy and button pattern. John also collects glassware with a cut log pattern. She has a covered candy dish in a cut log pattern that her grandmother received as a wedding present in 1896.

Other club members are partial to other patterns. Phyllis Sauer, club historian and a club member since 1978, collects frosted lion and Westward Ho pieces.

Pressed glass can be found in antique shops, flea markets and garage sales, but the buyer must beware of reproductions, John said. Some early pieces can run in the thousands of dollars, but many items cost in the $20 to $200 range, she said.

"I think some people just buy it because it's pretty," she said.

Club President Laura Judd Fulton, a fourth generation club member, said John is assembling a good representation of what members have in their collections.

"She's done a wonderful job organizing all this," Fulton said. "We wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for her."

Organizing is nothing new for John, an Aurora resident since 1971 and a club member since 1995. She has served as both president and vice president of the club, but her interests extend far beyond pressed glass.

She volunteers at Morton Arboretum in Lisle, where she helps to arrange events. An active gardener herself, she is a member of the Tuesday Garden Club of Aurora, which will provide fresh flower arrangements for the opening of the pressed glass exhibit.

John is active in the United Methodist Church, where she has served in positions on the local, regional and international levels. While vice president of the World Federation of Methodist Women, she led a team to a forum on women in China in 1995.

The mother of two adult children and grandmother of three, John also is a sculptor and a potter. She once made 3,000 communion cups for meetings in Chicago, New York, Texas and Indiana.

"I'm a full-time volunteer," John said of herself.

If you go

What: "Captured Light," 75th anniversary exhibit of the Mid-West Early American Pressed Glass Club

When: Sept. 19 to Oct. 12; hours noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday

Where: David L. Pierce Art & History Center, 20 E. Downer Place, Aurora

Admission: $3 adults, $1.50 students and seniors, free for children under 12

Call: (630) 906-0650