Mary Jane Dowd, msa_sc5330_23_8, Image No: 22   Enlarge and print image (42K)          << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
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Mary Jane Dowd, msa_sc5330_23_8, Image No: 22   Enlarge and print image (42K)          << PREVIOUS  NEXT >>
110 MARYLAND HISTORICAL MAGAZINE the privilege of taking tolls from all persons using the bridge, as long as he fulfilled the conditions specified. The most direct form of state aid to private enterprise was that of loaning money to businessmen. In all probability, since this form of state action did entail cost and risk to the state, it was indulged in only rarely. During the postwar period only one Maryland businessman, Johann Friedrich Amelung, was the recipient of such aid. Amelung was the German immi- grant whose glass factory near Frederick manufactured some of the finest early American engraved glassware in existence 92 In his pamphlet, which pleaded for aid to American manu- facturers and for aid to European artisans to enable them to bring their knowledge to America, he said that he had chosen Maryland for the establishment of his factory from the advice of Marylanders who had been visiting Bremen, Hanover. They had told him that in Maryland he could expect " to meet . . . with encouragement," that raw materials for glass were abun- dant in the state, and that his finished glass would bring a higher price in the United States than in England or Ger- many. The principal point was, and which we had the greatest reason to expect, that the Government of this State would encourage and assist to their utmost a Manufactory, which drew a number of in- dustrious workmen into it, and which, since the raw materials could be found right in the state, would keep the large sums of money formerly spent for imported glass in the country.s3 Amelung arrived in Mary- land in 1784 and proceeded to a 2,100 acre site near the Mo- nacacy River in Frederick County.- There he erected his fac- tory, the " Glass House," homes for himself and his workers, and a German and English school.96 The factory did begin production, because in February of 1789 Washington wrote to Jefferson that the factory was likely °9 Examples of Amelung's glassware may be seen at the Maryland Historical Society. " Amelung, p. 10. °' Dorothy Mackay Quynn, " Johann Friedrich Amelung at New Bremen," Md. His. Mag., XLIII (Sept.., 1948) , 158. 91 Amelung, pp. 12-13.