Identity and Origins
In 1852, the Crimmel family emigrated from the Hessen region of what is now Germany to south Wheeling, Virginia. Wheeling had a German population that may have attracted the family. Immigrants from this time period often, upon arrival in the United States, would ride trains to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and then ride in boats down the Ohio River to settle in cities along way. An alternative route to Wheeling (from Baltimore) involved the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and/or the National Road. Although Hessians had been making glass since the Middle Ages, it is not known if the Crimmel family members learned glassmaking skills in Europe. However, Henry Crimmel’s father and both brothers were also glassmakers. Germans were being recruited to work in glass factories during the 1850s. By the 1870s, family members lived across the river from Wheeling in Bellaire, Ohio.
Read more about this topic: Henry Crimmel
Famous quotes containing the words identity and/or origins:
“Personal change, growth, development, identity formation—these tasks that once were thought to belong to childhood and adolescence alone now are recognized as part of adult life as well. Gone is the belief that adulthood is, or ought to be, a time of internal peace and comfort, that growing pains belong only to the young; gone the belief that these are marker events—a job, a mate, a child—through which we will pass into a life of relative ease.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)