Description
1940s Armstrong’s No. 2 A-8-54 Clear Glass Insulator GI-0024Dimensions: 4″ x 3″ x 3″History: In 1838, at which time the glassworks was then known as the “Phoenix Glass Works”, Captain John M. Whitall entered the business in partnership with G.M.Haverstick and William Scattergood. Shortly afterward, the firm name became Scattergood & Whitall after the retirement of Haverstick. Franklin Whitall, John’s brother, then joined the firm in 1845. In 1848 the name of the firm became “Whitall, Brother & Company” after Edward Tatum became involved. In 1857 the name was again changed to “Whitall Tatum & Company”, and finally in 1901, to “Whitall Tatum Company” which was the name used until 1938 when the works were bought by Armstrong.Whitall Tatum was purchased by Armstrong Cork Company in 1938. Armstrong had long used an “A in a circle” as a trademark. It is likely there was a gradual changeover on bottle and jar molds starting around 1938, but that transition probably occurred over several years time. Realizing that a large number of molds were in use, I would suspect it took a while for all of them to be re-tooled. And some of them may have been allowed to ‘wear out’, to then be replaced with newer molds bearing the “A in a circle” trademark.From research done on Whitall Tatum insulators, (by collector and researcher Richard Wentzel) as discussed on page 138 of the reference book “Insulators: A History and Guide to North American Glass Pintype Insulators” (McDougald & McDougald, 1990), he indicates that the “A in a circle” was apparently first placed on their insulator molds about 1941 (three years after Armstrong took over), and, meanwhile, the WT in a triangle mark was phased out gradually, over a period of quite a few years, from approximately 1941 to 1949, ON THEIR INSULATORS.
