Corning, New York: a company town that kept its glass

By Ines Keane

Most towns wait for a museum to explain what they made. Corning, in the Southern Tier of New York, got one, and a good one. The company that gave the town its name moved here in 1868. The museum opened in 1951, as a present for the company’s hundredth year.

How a glass company found Corning

Wikipedia’s article on Corning Inc. says the firm was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton as the Bay State Glass Co., in Somerville, Massachusetts, and moved to Corning, New York, in 1868 under Amory Houghton Jr. The same article dates the first consumer cooking products in temperature-resistant glass to 1915, when the company launched Pyrex. It says Corning researchers announced an optical fiber in 1970 that made fiber optics practical for telecommunications, and that the company sold Steuben Glass Works in 2008.

The museum

The Corning Museum of Glass says on its own blog that it opened to the public on May 19, 1951, with five staff members and about 2,000 objects. The blog describes it as a gift to the Corning community for the “centennial anniversary of Corning Glass Works.” It credits Arthur A. Houghton Jr. and his cousin Amory Houghton with creating it, and says it began as part of a for-profit Corning Glass Center that also held an auditorium, a Hall of Science and a windowed wall for watching glass worked in the Steuben factory.

The hot shop

The museum’s own site is the place to check show times and admission; we did not load it.

The museum’s Studio, a teaching building, opened on May 24, 1996, according to the museum’s blog. The building was first put up in 1958 for the Eugene C. Sullivan Research Laboratories of Corning Glass Works and later served as a product-testing site, including for Pyrex. The blog says that in 2024 the Studio expanded to occupy the entire building and became home to the nation’s largest casting center. Wikipedia describes the same expansion as growing the Studio from 24,000 to 60,000 square feet. We report both; they do not contradict each other.

A library in a flood

Wikipedia says the Rakow Research Library was founded in 1951 as part of the museum. When Hurricane Agnes flooded the area in June 1972, it reports, half the library collection was damaged and 528 of the museum’s 13,000 objects were affected. Staff and volunteers restored more than 7,000 books over two years, and the museum reopened on August 1, 1972.

Dates in order

1851: the company is founded in Somerville, Massachusetts.
1868: the company moves to Corning.
1915: Pyrex launched.
May 19, 1951: the museum opens.
May 24, 1996: the Studio opens.

Side by side

Question	Wikipedia	Museum blog
Who made the museum	Founded by Corning Glass Works	A gift to the community, credited to two Houghton cousins
Opened	1951	May 19, 1951
Opening collection	Not stated	About 2,000 objects
Studio	Opened for classes in 1996	Opened May 24, 1996

What kind of sources these are

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit. The museum blog is the museum’s own voice, so it tells the story the way the museum wants it told. No independent museum guide or tourism board page loaded.