The Spanish American War Through the Glass

After we have dragged through seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and earlier Vietnam)  an  American war that lasted only three months, two weeks and four days, might seem an impossibility.  That, however, was the duration of the Spanish-American War that began this month 117 years ago.   Despite its short duration, the conflict was an important event in our national history.   Moreover, it generated any number of memorabilia that continue to be of interest to collectors.   Those artifacts include a great many items made of glass and are the subject of this post.  

The proximate cause of the war was the sinking of the U.S. cruiser, the S.S. Maine, in Havana Harbor in February 1898 with the loss of 260 sailors.  President McKinley ostensibly had sent it to Cuba as a sign of American goodwill toward the colonial power there, Spain.  While the  explosion that sunk the Maine has never quite been explained, war hawks in the U.S. were quick to call it “dirty treachery on the part of the Spanish.”  “Remember the Maine,” became the watchword.

                             

The proximate cause of the war was the sinking of the U.S. cruiser, the S.S. Maine, in Havana Harbor in February 1898 with the loss of 260 sailors.  President McKinley ostensibly had sent it to Cuba as a sign of American goodwill toward the colonial power there, Spain.  While the  explosion that sunk the Maine has never quite been explained, war hawks in the U.S. were quick to call it “dirty treachery on the part of the Spanish.”  “Remember the Maine,” became the watchword.

As a result many Spanish-American War souvenirs depict the ship that launched the cry for war against Spain.  Shown here are two items both featuring a similar photograph of the Maine. They are often characterized as “label under glass” bottles.  One is a flask;  the other is a canteen, with holes for a strap to loop through.  The bottles were blown in mold, the picture inserted, and another layer of glass fit over the front.  This insured that the illustration was left intact so long as the glass is not broken.

Yet another familiar war souvenirs and Maine memorials were glass paperweights.  The war occurred during the peak years of American paperweight production as glassblowers made them either as part of their job or as lunchtime and after work diversions.  Although neithe weight shown here were signed by their maker, both contain the familiar war cry and illustrates the Maine heading to the bottom.  The weight at left has only a crude representation of the ship, done in white, with wavy lines indicating its passage downward.  On the second at right, the seas seem to be boiling up around the ship, of with only two smoke stacks and a mast  visible.  

The Maine incident could decorate even mundane objects.  Two shown here, for example, involved mustard,  The one at left is a lidded clear glass mustard jar on which has been embossed a representation of the ship sinking while smoke rises in the air.  Cuba’s Morro Castle is embossed on the other side.  At right is a mustard dish with the Battleship Oregon represented in milk glass.  The Oregon was a Navy battleship that took part in the naval battle of Santiago de Cuba.  Fast enough to chase down and force the surrender of a Spanish cruiser, the ship gained the nickname “Bulldog of the Navy.”  The mustard could be found by lifting the top of the dish.

Another favorite war theme was the cooperation between the U.S. Army and Navy in routing the enemy, both in Cuba and in the Philippines.  This supposed camaraderie was captured in an illustration of a well accoutered soldier shaking hands with a sailor whose sword is posed perilously close to the solder’s knee.  The image, again a label under glass, can be found on several bottle shapes, including canteens and flasks.  

Although the common fighting man got some recognition for his service, the greatest adulation was reserved for the victorious officers.  Admiral George  Dewey had arrived in Manila Bay, the Philippines, with the U.S. Pacific fleet early in the conflict.  He found a large number of Spanish ships anchored there and sank all of them in the ensuing battle.  Not long after 11,000 Army troops stormed ashore and captured Manila.  

Both Dewey and Rough Rider Theodore Roosevelt (whose souvenirs are elsewhere presented on this blog) emerged as the uber heroes of the war.   The flask shown here makes that clear with the patriotic symbols that surround the admiral, as well as the motto:  “Our Hero.”  This is an excellent example of a label under glass bottle and how it can preserve colors.  Dewey’s image also could be found on less decorative items, such as the drinking glass shown here. 

The final label under glass canteen memorializes a most unusual man to be honored for his service.  A cousin of Robert E. Lee, Fitzhugh Lee had fought Union troops as a Confederate cavalry commander. Indeed, near the end of the war he headed of all the rebel horse soldiers.  Fitzhugh had redeemed himself sufficiently by the late 1900s that President Cleveland appointed him U.S. consul-general in Havana.   He was retained in the post by McKinley and lived in Havana through riotous days in Cuba, including the sinking of the Maine.  Upon the declaration of war between Spain and the United States, he re-entered the army.  By this time, however, he had grown so heavy that he hardly could fit on a horse and his duties were largely administrative.  Even so, good old “Fitz” Lee was swept up in the patriotic fervor the day and awarded his face on a label under glass canteen.   

Because the Spanish-American was a short war, it did not produce as much memorabilia as other U.S. conflicts before or since.  Still, the conflict has its place in American history and the glass memorabilia shown here testify to the high emotions it engendered. 

Holiday Flasks and Spirits of the Season

From ancient times, the holiday season has been identified with the imbibing of alcoholic beverages.  It has nothing to do with the religious aspects of Christmas and everything to do with celebrating those two other occasions that come along about  the same time.  I refer to the Winter Solstice, when daylight slowly begins to return to the Northern Hemisphere and to the inauguration of the New Year.  Both events traditionally have involved considerable liquid celebration.

In the English-speaking world, the secular and religious aspects of the season have been conflated, it seems, almost since colonial times.  One historical expression was the Christmas flask, very popular in the Victorian era until about 1920 when National Prohibition shut down bibulous celebrations.   Nevertheless, these flasks are, in their own right,  interesting artifacts and worthy of attention, particularly at this time of the year.

These glass bottles typically held a substantial drink of rye whiskey (in the U.S.) or similar distilled spirits (U.S. and elsewhere).  They were given away to favored customers by distillers, wholesale liquor dealers, saloon keepers,  and even druggists, many of whom stocked whiskey for “medicinal” purposes.  Today the flasks are avidly collected and often displayed year ‘round and not just at the holidays.

My favorite holiday flasks are those illustrated by birds.  A particularly delightful one, shown here, depicted an avian singing on a branch of a blooming fruit tree.   I had identified it as a robin red breast when my wife, a master birder, walked in and said “nonsense.”  It appears to her to be a bluebird,  so I correct my identification.  Two other bird flasks shown here neither of us was able to identify the species or even the family. Probably an artist’s fancy.

All three were  label-under-glass (L-U-G) bottles, that is, the container was hand blown, probably in a mold, with a recessed area in the front.  Then the painted or lithographed image was placed into the recess, sometimes held by bee’s wax.  Then another very thin piece of separately prepared glass as very carefully put over the top of the image and glued. 

The process of creating these bottles obviously was tedious and time-consuming. Wages  for glassblowers and other workers at that time were very low.  As a result, glass houses could produce the bottles in great numbers at low cost and sell them cheaply to a wide range of organizations in the whiskey trade.  They in turn would fill them with no-name liquor and put their own identifying label on the back, not wanting to spoil the image on the front.  Usually these labels began with the words, “Compliments of....”  Almost without exception, Christmas flasks were never sold -- until today when they command healthy prices.


None of the following L-U-G flasks have labels identifying the benefactor.   These  have long ago been washed off, either by accident or on purpose.  Washing does not damage a label that is under glass.   With time, however, some spotting can occur on the glass-protected label, often by discoloration of the substances used to adhere the labels and glass cover.   Two shown below are often referred to as “union-shaped,” that is, a bottle that is a semi-oval, sloping symmetrically toward both the neck and the base.  The third is a straight-sided flask, the most common shape for this size whiskey flask.  Note that  all the examples feature a screw-type metal top.  Such a closure also could be conveniently used for having a quick “snort.”

John Hrobsky & Son obviated the problem of having their label washed off their Christmas  flask by including it under the glass label.   Their saloon was on Vliet Street on Milwaukee’s near North Side and not far from my Milwaukee residence of several years.  My favorite tavern on Vliet Street was the “Trails End Lodge.”  As a frequent customer during the 1950s I sometimes was given a bottle of egg nog preparation for the holidays, the special recipe of the owner, Mitzi.  Although the bottle in which it came was not special like Hrobsky’s, the egg nog was excellent.

Even less expensive for a giveaway than a L-U-G flask was buying a standard bottle and slapping on a personalized printed label   Those labels are much less likely to survive in their original mode than a protected one but on did on a flask from 1902-1903, shown here.   Proclaiming “Holiday Chimes” it was a standard label to which the distributor would overprint his name.  In this case it was Otto F. Lieders. My research has discovered that Mr. Lieders was described by a contemporary as “one of Buffalo’s most popular hotel men.”   No doubt giving away whiskey was a contributing factor to his popularity.

Timepieces such as pocket watches and alarm clocks also were frequently copied in glass for Christmas season figurals.  Our last example is molded from milk glass and featured gilded and letters and numerals.  Much of the gold has rubbed off the embossing over the years.  This flask celebrates the turn of the last century as 1899 turned into 1900.  The clock is set to a quarter to twelve midnight.  With such an interesting and unusual item it is disappointing that the issuing party cannot be unidentified.

Christmas flasks disappeared with the coming of National Prohibition in 1920.  When Repeal came only 14 years later,  the Congress passed elaborate new laws on how liquor was to be prepared, labeled, packaged and sold.  Among restrictions were those on giveaway items.  Liquor purveyors could sell their products in special containers for the holidays but they could not give them away.  Thus the tradition of the small Christmas flask was not resurrected.  Most examples,, including those shown here, either have reached the 100 year “antique” standard or soon will do so.

Note:  Thanks go to John R. Pastor, the publisher of the American Bottle & Glass Collector magazine and a collector himself of Christmas flasks.   Several of the images shown here are from his collection.  Moreover, by featuring Christmas flasks in his magazine recently, he gave me the impetus to devote a post to these artifacts and display images “in the spirit of the season” that I have collected in recent years.