Jack K. Paquette, who had a 33-year career with Owens-Illinois Glass
Company, has just published his book *The Glassmakers revisited.*  During
his career he rose through the ranks to become a corporate vice president
and assistant to the four of the first five CEOs of the Owens-Illinois
Company.  One of his final assignments in 1984 was to write a history of the
company.  That was a little too candid for publication, so it remained a
company document.  This history was rewritten and 100 copied of it was
privately published by Jack in 1994 for distribution to friends in the glass
industry and others, but it was not offered for sale.  *The Glassmakers
revisited *is a rewrite of that book and is now available from Xlibris and
Amazon.com.  The hard back costs $29.99 and a paperback copy is available
for $19.99.



            It appears that Jack became the defacto historian for the
company.  His personal archives of papers related to the glass industry have
been deposited at the University of Toledo.  The book summarizes the
development of the Owens Bottle Machine Company and the Illinois Glass
Company and their merger in 1929 to become Owens-Illinois Glass Company.  Being
an insider, Jack’s book provides insights that could only come from someone
that was there on the seen in the inner circle of management.  The book
provides wonderful insights of the glass industry reacting to prohibition,
the loss of the market for beer bottles to canned beer, the impact of the
paper milk carton, and the introduction of plastic bottles.  At different
times Owens-Illinois entered into the production of tin cans, plastic
bottles and other products in reaction to changes in the market.  Some of
these ventures were short lived and sold off at a loss.  Despite the success
in production of plastic containers, that division was sold off a few years
ago to help clear company debt and took Owens-Illinois back to being a glass
container company.



            The book read very well, in addition to providing insights as to
when changes were taking place in the production of containers and how the
and when the market changed.  I highly recommend Jack’s book for anyone
dealing width 20th century sites.



Peace,

George L. Miller