Trust me. I’ve opened a lot of them in my day. Bottles.
They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and they certainly can hold a wide variety of things. Most of them are filled with liquids, although this isn’t always true.
Our handy bottles have been around since prehistoric times. People needed ways to carry liquid way back then. The modern conveniences of the cave, when you could bring water back home. All the better to put the fire out.
Early on, things like gourds and animal skins were used. But eventually, civilizations learned about making glass. Before 1500 BC, those good Egyptians produced glass bottles. The process described in the Brittanica Encyclopedia makes me wonder about these people back then. They made bottles “by covering silica paste cores with molten glass and digging out the core after the bottle hardened.” Sounds complicated. Yet, those same people built the pyramids, so why am I surprised?
But then who was the person who figured out glassblowing? I mean, who sits around in their kitchen, eating waffles, and devises a plan to blow glass? Well, it happened, by god. By 200 BC, glassblowing was practiced in China, Persia (modern Iran), and Egypt. And that is how it continued until the bottle-making process was commercialized.
It was during the 1820s when the industry experienced the most important innovation in making glass. A man named Benjamin Bakewell patented a process of mechanically pressing hot glass, which would change how glass was used forever. He is one and the same with the Bakewell Glass Company in Pittsburgh, PA.
By 1890, the use of glass increased very rapidly. And so did the processes for producing it.
Which brings me to our guy William Painter. It was on this very date, February 6, 1894, that the bottle opener was patented by him.
Baby William was born in Ireland, in 1838, to Dr. Edward Painter and Louisa Gilpin Painter. Let me tell you. They know a lot about carrying liquids in Ireland. But I don’t think that had anything to do with William’s charge. He came to America at the age of twenty to build bigger dreams and find better opportunities.
He must have had a thing for bottles.
Painter worked in a machine shop for years. But, he shifted into the role of inventor. He worked with manufacturers to develop a universal neck for all glass bottles. All for one, and one for all. He started Crown Cork and Seal in 1892 to manufacture caps that could be used to seal the universal necks.
So, first, he built the bottle. Then he built the cap. And finally, a way to open those caps.
Painter patented 85 inventions, “including the common bottle cap, the bottle opener, a machine for crowning bottles, a paper-folding machine, a safety ejection seat for passenger trains, and also a machine for detecting counterfeit currency.” (Wiki)
His list of patents is eclectic, to say the very least. I guess there was a huge demand for a safety ejection seat on passenger trains. Like, if you were sitting next to someone really annoying. Perhaps a snorer, or someone who chewed really loud. Maybe they clipped their nails right in front of everyone. Who knows. But William solved the problem. Just reach over, pull their seat cord, and watch them launch right out of that train.
All this aside, I am sure today is a very big day for a lot of Americans. Where would they be without the bottle opener? Especially on Super Bowl Sunday.
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“Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.”
― John Burroughs, Studies in Nature and Literature
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“I am always in quest of being open to what the universe will bring me.”
― Jill Bolte Taylor
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“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver
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What’s in the bottle, and how to top it.
