Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio's Glass Industry, 1885-2003
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections The University of Toledo Finding Aid Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio's Glass Industry, 1885-2003 MSS-169 Size: 11.5 Linear Feet Provenance: Jack K. Paquette, Toledo, OH Access: Open Collection Summary: This collection contains material that Paquette accumulated over the course of his career, as well as material he collected while researching and writing three books-- two on the history of Owens-Illinois and one on the glass-making industry in Northwest Ohio. Subjects: Business and Commerce, Glass Industry. Related Collections: Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company Records, MSS-066 Processing Note: None Copyright: The literary rights to this collection are assumed to rest with the person(s) responsible for the production of the particular items within the collection, or with their heirs or assigns. Researchers bear full legal responsibility for the acquisition to publish from any part of said collection per Title 17, United States Code. The Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections may reserve the right to intervene as intermediary at its own discretion. Completed by: Kathy Warnes, July 2003 and Mary Koslovsky, October 2005; June 2014; Tom Smith, November 2016 Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio's Glass Industry, 1885-2003 Biographical Outline: Jack K. Paquette 1925 Born in Toledo, Ohio 1943 Graduated from Ross High School, Fremont, Ohio 1943-1946 Served in the U.S. Naval Reserve on active duty for three years during World War II. 1949 Graduated from The Ohio State University with a B.A. in Journalism. 1951 Graduated from The Ohio State University with an M.A. in Political Science. Worked on Columbus, Ohio, newspaper as full-time journalist while attending school. 1951 July - Employed by Owens-Illinois Glass Company as a Creative Writing Specialist. 1951-1967 Served in a variety of advertising and marketing management positions for Owens-Illinois and as a supervisor in the Libbey Glass factory. 1967 Appointed Director of Organization Planning for Owens-Illinois. 1967-1984 Served under four of the five chairmen of Owens-Illinois. These chairmen were: J. Preston Levis, Raymon H. Mulford, Edwin D. Dodd, and Robert J. Lanigan. 1969 Appointed Vice President of Administrative Division of Owens-Illinois. 1970 Elected Vice President of Owens-Illinois, Inc. 1980 Appointed Assistant to the Chairman of Owens-Illinois, Inc. 1982 Elected Assistant to the Executive Office of Owens-Illinois, Inc. 1984 Retired from Owens-Illinois, Inc. 1985 Wrote and published, A History of Owens-Illinois, Inc. 1994 Wrote and published an updated version of The Glassmakers: A History of Owens-Illinois, Inc. entitled The Glassmakers. 2002 Wrote and published Blowpipes: Northwest Ohio Glassmaking in the Gas Boom of the 1880s. Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio's Glass Industry, 1885-2003 Biographical Sketch - Jack K. Paquette Jack Paquette was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1925. After his mother died, Paquette’s father could no longer care for him and his two brothers during the Depression. In 1933 when Paquette was 8 years old, his father placed him in the Lucas County Children’s Home in Maumee. Despite the institutional setting, Paquette recalled later that he had many fond memories of growing up there. He was adopted at the age of 13, but his early experience living in the Children’s Home led to a life-long commitment to the home and service as a trustee on the Lucas County Children’s Services Board. Overcoming his difficult childhood, Paquette graduated from Ross High School in Fremont, Ohio, and spent three years on active duty in the Naval Reserve during World War II. After the war, he attended The Ohio State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1949 and a master’s degree in political science in 1951. He worked full-time as a journalist on a Columbus newspaper while attending the university. While employed by the Columbus newspaper, Paquette realized he did not want to continue in the journalism field. Two Owens-Illinois executives recruiting in Columbus in 1951 interviewed Paquette and offered him a job. Years later, he admitted “I had never heard of the company.” He began working for Owens-Illinois in July of that year as a creative writing specialist. Paquette advanced through the company, serving in a variety of advertising and marketing management positions and as a supervisor in the Libbey Glass Division’s Toledo factory. In 1967 he became Director of Organizational Planning, and two years later was appointed a vice president of the company’s Administrative Division and established its first corporate relations department. His responsibilities included public affairs, press relations, advertising, internal communications, and corporate contributions. He directed corporate relations for eleven years, and in 1981, became assistant to company chairman Edwin D. Dodd. During his years at Owens- Illinois, Paquette worked closely with J. Preston Levis, chairman from 1961 to 1963; Raymon H. Mulford, chairman from 1963-1972; Edwin D. Dodd, chairman from 1972 to 1983, and Robert J. Lanigan, who was chairman when Paquette retired in 1984. In 1982, Paquette became assistant to the executive office and served in that capacity until he retired in July 1984. Paquette was also involved in many professional and community organizations. For more than fifteen years he served as trustee of the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, and in 1980 was named president of the Bowling Green State University Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization designed to seek and manage private gifts to BGSU. He was the Owens-Illinois corporate liaison officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and honorary director of the Greater Toledo Area Chapter, American Red Cross. He was also a member of the Toledo Area Council Executive Board, Boy Scouts of America. Paquette co-founded both the Columbus and Northwest Ohio chapters of Sigma Delta Chi, the national professional journalism society, and was a member of the board of governors of the Advertising Club of Toledo. He served as chairman of the U.S. Savings Bond Campaign in Lucas County, and as a trustee of the Greater Toledo YMCA. He was founding director of the Press Club of Toledo and held a number of positions with the United Way of Northwest Ohio. He was chairman of the government relations committee of the Glass Packaging Institute in Washington D.C. and was a member of the Advisory Board of Mercy Hospital in Toledo. Other civic activities include serving as a trustee of the Toledo Repertoire Theatre, president of Crosby Gardens, chairman of Toledo’s Riverside Hospital Foundation. He is a Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio's Glass Industry, 1885-2003 member of the President’s Council of the Toledo Museum of Art, the President’s Club of Bowling Green State University, the advisory board of Maine’s Mid-Coast Hospital, and the Toledo Club. He married the former Jane Russell of Fremont, and they have two sons and two daughters. Some years before he retired from Owens-Illinois, Paquette began researching the glass industry in Northwest Ohio. After he retired, he spent nine years researching and writing Blowpipes, which was published in August 2003 by Xlibris Corporation. The book chronicles the glassmaking industry throughout the region, including information on many small companies that had been lost to history. It also includes material on glassmaking technology in the 1880s and the rise and fall of the child labor system that the glassmaking industry had helped to create. In addition to Blowpipes, Paquette wrote two other books about the glass industry: The Glassmakers, and A History of Owens-Illinois, Inc., 1818-1984. Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio's Glass Industry, 1885-2003 Scope and Content Note The Jack Paquette Collection on Northwest Ohio’s Glass Industry is divided into three series: research files created by Paquette during his work on the book Blowpipes; files documenting Paquette’s tenure at Owens-Illinois, Inc., and audiovisual materials (including glass artifacts). The collection should prove valuable to researchers because of its documentation of smaller, forgotten glass companies that once existed throughout the region. Also important is the information on Owens-Illinois Inc., since little other documentation on the history of this company is available to researchers. Series I, Glass Industry Research Files, includes newspaper clippings on each of the companies chronicled in Paquette’s book, Blowpipes. Included is information about small companies in Bloomdale, Bowling Green, Findlay, Fostoria, Maumee, North Baltimore, Tiffin, Toledo and Welker. In addition to the small companies that no longer exist, more extensive files are included on the larger companies still in operation, such as Libbey-Owens-Ford and Owens- Corning. Also included in the research files are galley proofs for the book and reviews of Blowpipes. Series II, Owens-Illinois Files, documents both the company’s history and Paquette’s tenure with the company. The series is divided into three subseries: Financial and Corporate Materials, Printed Material, and Speeches. Financial and Corporate Materials include information on the financial status of the company as reported in quarterly reports, stock and shareholder reports, and annual reports. The annual reports cover the years 1929 to 2002, and are complete for these years. Additional material includes bylaws of the Board of Directors, biographies and photographs of O-I executives, and an unpublished history of the company written by Paquette in 1953. Printed materials include various newsletters of the company, press releases, newspaper clippings about the company, and a personal biography of R. W. Lock written about his career at O-I. Speeches and personal papers consist of texts written by Paquette as director of corporate relations for several O-I executives, particularly those written for Edwin D. Dodd covering the years 1968 to 1984.