Glass Manufacturing Workers

Approximately 85,250 glass manufacturing workers are employed in the United States. Most workers in glass manufacturing are employed in factories in or near big cities in many sections of the country, where they work with pressed or blown glass. Others work in plants making glass containers, and some work with flat glass. One of the world leaders in specialty glass materials is Corning, the company that supplied the glass for Thomas Edison's first light bulb and influenced the use of red, yellow, and green lights for traffic control. Among the applications for Corning's glass technology were the first mass-produced TV tubes, freezer-to-oven ceramic cookware, and car headlights. In the 1970s, Corning pioneered the development of optical fiber and auto emission technology; in 1993, the company was chosen by AT&T to provide fiber-optic couplers for its under-sea telecommunications system and developed an electrically heated catalytic converter that could meet strict California emissions standards. More recently, Corning created the first damage-resistant cover glass for mobile devices.