Glen & Stephen Thistlewood
Carnival Glass Worldwide
  • Home
  • Patterns, Colours, Shapes
  • Carnival Gallery
  • Books, e-books

Carnival Glass - what's in a name?


Although Carnival Glass is now the generally accepted name for this astonishingly beautiful, highly sought-after and internationally collected form of art glass, it has not always been so.  When it was originally advertised for sale in the early 1900s it was variously called "Pompeiian Iridescent", "Venetian Art", and "Mexican Aurora", all terms that were intended to help it sell.

How did the name Carnival Glass come about, and why did this name stick? 

The accepted wisdom is that, possibly due to overstocking or maybe an excess of poorer quality items swamping the market in the 1920s and 1930s, some of the iridised glass made in the USA began to be given away at carnivals and county fairs, and subsequently the name "Carnival Glass" simply stuck. Although on the face of it, it feels like a derogatory term, a bit of a “put down,” it actually works!

However, the story is more complicated ..... and more interesting than that! Let's take a look at how Carnival Glass (as we now call it) was presented in the press at the time.

Lee Manufacturing Catalog, Chicago (c 1915)

Lee Manufacturing was a US mail order company. Below are two of their advertisements that showed Carnival Glass.

Picture

This advert was in a special loose-leaf colour supplement to Lee's main catalogue. The blue Fenton Orange Tree shaving mug is delightfully presented amongst a group called a “6-piece Complete Shaving Outfit”. The text at the bottom that refers to the Carnival mug is a little hard to read - it says:

"Full size floral design Shaving Mug is beautiful iridescent ware and reflects all the rich colours of the rainbow." 
Picture

This is a wonderful Lee ad for a Fashion punch set, made by Imperial.

The text reads: 

"This punch set is another of our popular items in the famous "rainbow" tinted iridescent high-art glassware, that is having such an enormous run with us, and proving so popular with our large list of discriminating customers in all parts of the country. This punch set is being turned out especially for us by one of the largest glass factories in the U.S. and we expect to sell thousands of them within the next few months. The bowl to this set and the stand are made in two separate pieces. Bowl measures 11 3/4" across the top; total height of stand and bowl, 9 3/4". The six cups which exactly match the bowl, are full size. 

The price for the seven pieces, $2.00 (sic!).

The Billboard (from 1915 and later)

As we said earlier, it was considered that the name Carnival Glass came about in the 1920s and 1930s when some of the iridised glass made in the USA began to be given away as prizes at carnivals and county fairs.

However, f
rom as early as 1915, ads for glass as carnival prizes appeared in a popular journal called The Billboard. It was originally intended to be the trade paper for the bill posting industry, The Billboard quickly widened its scope and was soon carrying ads, news and information for circuses, carnivals, amusement parks, fairs and more.
The Billboard
The Billboard, 1915
The ad on the left is from 1915, and the text - "hundreds of articles that will draw the crowds" - links with the imagery of fairground rides, carnivals and an "Amusement riding device"! The ads below is are from 1915 and 1917 and are more explicit, specifically offering Iridescent Glassware to "Concessionaires, Carnival and Showmen", and Iridescent Assortments for the Carnival Trade.
Picture
The Billboard, 1915
The Billboard
The Billboard, 1917
So what we see in The Billboard ads was an emerging picture of iridescent glass being firmly associated with carnivals from as early as 1915, being reinforced time after time. By the 1920s the association was well established: there is ad for the San Francisco store, Kindel & Graham, which had a list of items including iridescent glass under the headline “Announcing our 1922 Carnival Novelties”. It’s clear to see how the term Carnival Glass slowly but surely began to enter the vernacular.

Slum Glass?

The term in common usage in the 1920s for items that were used as free prizes for Carnival games and the like, was “slum” or “slum give-away”. 

The two extracts on the right show the popular use of, and the context for, these terms.

In fact we should probably be glad that the name “Carnival” stuck. It could have been called “Slum Glass” instead!

Picture
Picture
"Carnival Glass" came to be the generally accepted name, and Carnival sums up the excitement, the dynamism, and the thrilling sparkle of Carnival Glass collecting. Subsequently names like "Nancy glass", "Baking Powder glass" and "Poor Man's Tiffany" were used by collectors, and in parts of Scandinavia it was (and sometimes still is) referred to as “poison glass” – a black humour reference to the toxic nature of the chemicals used in its manufacture.

Here is an astonishing list of almost 100 names that Carnival has been known by, since its introduction in 1907.

Acid glass
African
Amerikaner glass
Aurora
​Aurora Golden Iridescent

Aurora Iris
Baking Powder Glass
Bohemian iridescent
Byzantine iridescent
Canadian glass
Carnaval glass
Carnave glass
Carneval
Carnivar glass
Carnical glass
Carniville glass
Carnival glass
Carny glass
Centennial glass
Circus Glass
Dope glass
Dopple glass
​
Egyptian Art​
Etruscan
Exhibition glass
Exposition Metallic
Fairground glass
Fireglow
Florentine iridescent
Gas House glass
Golden Beauty
Golden Glow
Golden Sunset
Golden Iris
​Goldiris
Gypsy glass
Imitation Tiffany
Indiana glass
Iridescent
Lovely coloured glass
Listerlasi
Lüster
Lüsterdekor
Lustraglas
Lustre glass
Lysterglas
Magnet glassware
Marigold
Marvel iridescent
Metallic iridescent
​Metallized Egyptian Art Glass
Mexican Aurora
Monarch glassware
Moonglow
Myrkilasi
Nancy glass
Naples glass
National glass
New Aurora
New Etruscan
New Venetian Art
Norcross
Northwood iridescent
Oil glass
Oil Lustre
Old Jersey
Opalescent
​Oriental iridescent
Orient iridescent
Oyster sheen glass
Panther
Parisian Art
Peacock color glass
Peacock Lustre glass
Pearl iridescent
Persian Pearl
Petro-glass
Pompeiian Iridescent
Poison Glass
Poor Man's Tiffany
Radiant Luster
Radium
Rainbo Lustre
Regal iridescent
Royal iridescent
Royal novelty
Rubigold glassware
Russian glass
Sandwich
Spanish American glass
Stuff they used to give away
Sunglow
Sunset Glass
Taffeta Glass
Woolworth glass
Venetian Art
Venetian iridescent
Victorian Art Glass
Working Man's Tiffany

​See more Lee Manufacturing catalogues and more about The Billboard

Back to Sell it to me! homepage
Copyright © 2023 by G&S Thistlewood and the individual authors and contributors where named. Protected under all applicable international laws and all rights are reserved. No image, text, or any part thereof may be copied, shared or transmitted to others without permission from the Copyright holders. Information herein may not be posted or made available, in whole or in part, on any website, social media site, FTP site, electronic bulletin board, newsgroup, or their equivalent.