Preserving History - A Look at Canning Jars

Back in early May, Papa Bob came home with a flat of strawberries. I'd like to report that he toiled in the nearby farm to pick them, but I can't tell a lie. Still, a flat of strawberries is a lot of strawberries!

I offered to make a Strawberry Pie (my first ever!) Yet an over-abundance of berries remained.

I knew I had a jar of Sure-Jell (pectin), jelly jars, and sugar. After making sure the Sure-Jell hadn't expired, I set to work making preserves. A little more than an hour later, 8 jars of ruby-red preserves were cooling on my island.

Every time I make preserves, or receive a gift of homemade pickles, my thoughts turn to pioneer women and food preservation. With different fruits and vegetables coming in abundance, and sometimes overlapping, the women would often find themselves overwhelmed by the endless bounty to "put up". But if they wanted their harvest to sustain them during the winter months, they had to tackle the seemingly never-endless process.

Primitive Canning

When Nicolas Appert, a French inventor, first put up food in glass jars in 1795, he thought it was the exclusion of air that preserved food. He was half right; the other half was his method of placing food in jars, then boiling the sealed jar. Until 1858, canning jars used a glass jar, a tin flat lid, and sealing wax, which was not reusable and messy!

Mason Jars

But in 1858, John L. Mason, an inventor and tin smith from New York City, invented the mason jar. His machine cut threads into the lids making it practical to manufacture a jar with a reusable, screw-on lid. His design, a glass container with a thread molded into its top and a zinc lid with a rubber ring greatly improved the design of his predecessor. The rubber created the seal, and the thread lid maintained it. The jar included his patent: 'Mason's Patent November 30th. 1858'.

 

 

Clamped Glass-Lid Jars (Lightning Jars)

Another type of canning jar was the 'Lightning' or wire ball jar. Invented in 1882 by Henry Putnam of Bennington, Vermont, these fruit jars used a glass lid and a metal clamp to hold the lid in place. These 'lightning jars' became popular because no metal (which could rust or break the seal) came in contact with the food and the metal clamps made the lids easier to seal and remove (hence, the 'lightning' name).
Basically, a wire loop and levers operated to clamp down securely onto the lid and close the jar. The 'Putnam' jars were made by at least 11 glass companies, some being made into the early 1900s. Aqua was the most commonly seen color, as was typical of utilitarian glass of the time period.

Fun Fact:  It's likely that 'White Lightning' derived its name from the fact that bootleggers used these jars to store their product!

Atlas Jars

The Atlas E-Z Seal is a type of lightning jar. The difference is a raised lip to help keep the jar from cracking. This was called the "strong Shoulder" and was similar to the mason jar. Hazel-Atlas Glass Company was in operation from the late 1800s until 1964.

 

                                                                                    Photo courtesy of Jo-Ann Roberts

Ball Jars

Meanwhile, in 1880 in Buffalo, NY, William Ball and his five brothers borrowed $200 from their uncle and were soon in the business of manufacturing wood-jacketed tin cans for the storage of oil, lard, kerosene, and paint. Four years later, the brothers began making glass home-canning jars, the product that established
Ball as a household name. The brothers moved the company from Buffalo to Muncie, Indiana, in 1887 to take advantage of abundant natural gas reserves essential to making glass.

Kerr Jars

At the turn of the 20th century, Alxander Kerr found the Hermetic Fruit Jar Company, featuring the Economy and Self-Sealing jars. The Economy jars were among the first wide-mouth jars and were easy to fill. They also incorporated elements from two 1923 patents held by another inventor, Julius Landsberger...a metal lid with a permanently attached gasket. This made the lids easy to use and inexpensive.

In 1915, Kerr invented a smaller, flat metal disk with the same permanent composition gasket. The lid sealed the top of a mason jar; a threaded metal ring held the lid down during the hot water process. This allowed re-use of old canning jars together with inexpensive and easy to use disposable lids. This two-part system transformed home canning safety and is still in use today.

Eco-Friendly Uses in the Modern World

As one of the most useful containers on the planet, the mason jar has skyrocketed in recent years for its huge range of uses, and it all started with canning.

Pinterest and DIY users have discovered the lure and nostalgia of vintage mason jars, turning them into solar lights, pantry organizers, kitchen and/or bathroom decor, Christmas luminaries, and centerpieces for a rustic country-style wedding.

 

                  Photo courtesy of Jo-Ann Roberts                             Photo courtesy of Jo-Ann Roberts