4 ms·

How was this funded in the past?

berbec 8y ago
More government research grants was likely a large part of it. The article mentions the heyday after WWII, referencing a flood of capital into the sciences.
ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
If you pay for multiple glass blowers at a University, then you can have a Master and an Apprentice. But you are paying for more blowing than you strictly need. If you pay for the exact amount of glass blowing you need, you will only have 1 glass blower per institution and there isn't room for apprenticeship. Seems like an easy fix would be a "Glass Blowers of Southern California" shop, where a few glass blowers could service USC, UCLA, and a couple other schools at the same time. That way you could still easily meet with the blower locally, but it wouldn't be on campus. Northern California wouldn't need a shop because Stanford, and Berkeley already have a bevy of glass blowing experts.
- ethbro 8y ago
  Or better yet, have apprentices at each institution, with a traveling master whose cost is shared across institutions. Apprentices take care of day-to-day work on their own, have oversight, and universities don't have to afford their own master glassblower.
  - lev99 8y ago
    Why are several apprentices and one traveling master better than a centralized group of glassblowers?
    - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
      I think he meant better in terms of long term sustainability of that skill set.
    - thefifthsetpin 8y ago
      One benefit would be the logistics of getting an apprentice's glass to an institution that needs it.
Someone 8y ago
Problem is that there was an entire industry that supplied glass blowers (for example, there was a time incandescent bulbs were hand-blown) If most of the glasswork in your lab has to be hand-made, you need dozens of people to do the job, junior personnel can be trained on the easier pieces, and the best of them can grow into experts making unica. Nowadays, there’s no need for junior glassblowers, so to get an expert, you’ll have to pay a candidate for years, possibly decades, without getting any benefits from it. Worse, there’s no guarantee that the person you hire will ever become good enough to do the job. Health and safety also may have made it more expensive. Glassblowing also isn’t the healthiest job. Burns and cuts go with the job, various fumes are toxic, there’s “glassblower’s cataract”, and it is heavy labor (e.g. when lifting a few kilograms of glass at the end of a pipe that’s meters long)

More government research grants was likely a large part of it. The article mentions the heyday after WWII, referencing a flood of capital into the sciences.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

If you pay for multiple glass blowers at a University, then you can have a Master and an Apprentice. But you are paying for more blowing than you strictly need. If you pay for the exact amount of glass blowing you need, you will only have 1 glass blower per institution and there isn't room for apprenticeship. Seems like an easy fix would be a "Glass Blowers of Southern California" shop, where a few glass blowers could service USC, UCLA, and a couple other schools at the same time. That way you could still easily meet with the blower locally, but it wouldn't be on campus. Northern California wouldn't need a shop because Stanford, and Berkeley already have a bevy of glass blowing experts.

ethbro 8y ago
Or better yet, have apprentices at each institution, with a traveling master whose cost is shared across institutions. Apprentices take care of day-to-day work on their own, have oversight, and universities don't have to afford their own master glassblower.
- lev99 8y ago
  Why are several apprentices and one traveling master better than a centralized group of glassblowers?
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    I think he meant better in terms of long term sustainability of that skill set.
  - thefifthsetpin 8y ago
    One benefit would be the logistics of getting an apprentice's glass to an institution that needs it.

Someone 8y ago

Problem is that there was an entire industry that supplied glass blowers (for example, there was a time incandescent bulbs were hand-blown) If most of the glasswork in your lab has to be hand-made, you need dozens of people to do the job, junior personnel can be trained on the easier pieces, and the best of them can grow into experts making unica. Nowadays, there’s no need for junior glassblowers, so to get an expert, you’ll have to pay a candidate for years, possibly decades, without getting any benefits from it. Worse, there’s no guarantee that the person you hire will ever become good enough to do the job. Health and safety also may have made it more expensive. Glassblowing also isn’t the healthiest job. Burns and cuts go with the job, various fumes are toxic, there’s “glassblower’s cataract”, and it is heavy labor (e.g. when lifting a few kilograms of glass at the end of a pipe that’s meters long)