Toledo Museum of Art: Glass Built This
Near Toledo, Ohio
In eighteen eighty-eight, a glassmaker named Edward Drummond Libbey moved the New England Glass Company from Massachusetts to Toledo to take advantage of cheaper natural gas and labor. Toledo became the Glass City, and Libbey became one of the wealthiest men in Ohio. His wife Florence, inspired by their travels abroad, pushed him to share that wealth.
In nineteen oh one, Libbey established the Toledo Museum of Art. The collection they built became one of the finest in the country. The Greek Revival building on Monroe Street, opened in nineteen twelve, still stands as the museum home.
The glass that paid for it all has its own dedicated wing, tracing four thousand years of the craft that made this city.
