"A whole glass plant could be built on the personal knowledge of a single glassmaker. And the main raw materials required - sand and wood for the furnace - were abundant on the eastern seaboard. As a result, glassmaking was probably the first industry established in British America. Polish and German glassmakers were brought to Virginia in 1608, followed by Italian glassmakers a few years later, and before the mid-seventeenth century, Massachusetts Bay was offering land to attract its own glassmakers. These craftsmen made bottles, lamps, tableware a few pieces of window glass, and incidentally provided some glass beads for the Indian trade. By 1740 a German immigrant, Casper Winstar, was operating a glassworks with four experienced Belgian glass blowers, to whom he added glass blowers from Germany and Portugal. His son Richard carried on the works, and in the tax troubled 1769 advertised in [Ben] Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette that 'our glass is of American manufacture - and it is of interest to America to encourage her own manufactures, more especially those upon which duties have been imposed solely to raise revenue.' Richard Winstar actually used the slogan 'Buy American manufactured goods.'" - Daniel Boorstin The American Experience
Seems timely given today's political climate.
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