Jon Littleton talks about secrecy in glass factories versus sharing knowledge in studio glass. Oral history interview with Kate Vogel and John Littleton by Barb Elam and Caleb Weintraub-Weissman, conducted via telephone, December 12, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 00:54.

John Littleton: Well, my perception is that before glass came to the art departments and universities, it was a industrial material. Even the designers who made drawings for the pieces to be produced didn’t know how to blow the glass. And, the factories were reluctant to share any information because it’d be stolen and used as a—their ideas would be sold from another factory. And so the sharing of it came from a lack of knowledge. Industry didn’t want to share. There were a few glassblowers that came out of industry that would show the workshop participants how to do this or that. And I think it just changed that whole attitude of ‘This is our livelihood,’ to ‘This is something we can all gain from.’