Glass milk bottles are glass bottles used for milk. They are generally reusable and returnable - used mainly for doorstep delivery of fresh milk by milkmen. Once customers have finished the milk, empty bottles are expected to be rinsed and left on the doorstep for collection, or rinsed bottles may be returned to a participating retail store. Bottle sizes vary depending on region, but common sizes include pint, quart or litre.
More recently, plastic bottles have been commonly used for milk. These are often made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) which is intended for a single use and is easily recyclable. Other plastic milk containers are also in use.
History
Before the emergence of milk bottles, milkmen would fill the customer's jugs. For many collectors, milk bottles carry a nostalgic quality of a bygone era. The most prized milk bottles are embossed or pyro-glazed (painted) with the names of dairies on them, which were used for home delivery of milk so that the milk bottles could find their way back to their respective dairies.
It is unclear precisely when milk bottles first came into use. Extending from the 1860s to the 1890s, there were several experimental "jars" that were not patented but were used to carry milk. The milk jar of the Tuthill Milk Company/Tuthill's Dairy of Unionville is an example of one of these early jars that features a ground lip and a base baring the mark of the pontil used to craft it. Other early milk jars during this time include the Mackworth "Pure Jersey Cream" crockery jar, the Manorfield Stock Farm jar, the Manor, and the Pennsylvania wide-mouth jar. In 1878, George Henry Lester patented the first glass jar intended to hold milk.
This jar featured a glass lid that was held on the jar by a metal clamp. In the same year that Lester invented his milk jar, the Brooklyn milk dealer Alex Campbell was credited with first selling milk in experimental glass bottles. These bottles likely did not resemble common milk bottles.
Lewis P. Whiteman held the first patent for a glass milk bottle with a small glass lid and a tin clip. Following this, the next earliest patent was for a milk bottle with a dome style tin cap and was granted on September 23, 1884, to Whiteman's brother, Abram V. Whiteman. The Whiteman brothers produced milk bottles based on these specifications at the Warren Glass Works Company in Cumberland, Maryland, and sold them through their New York sales office.
The Original Thatcher is one of the most desirable milk bottles for collectors. The patent for the glass dome lid was dated April 27, 1886. There are several variations of this early milk bottle and many reproductions. During this time period, many types of bottles were being used to hold and distribute milk. These include a pop bottle type with a wire clamp, used by the Chicago Sterilized Milk Company, Sweet Clover, and others. Fruit jars were also used, but only the Cohansey Glass Manufacturing plant made them with dairy names embossed.
The Commonsense Milk Bottle with the first cap seat was developed as an economical means for sealing a reusable milk bottle by the Thatcher Manufacturing Company around 1900. Most bottles produced after this time have a cap seat.
From the 1960s onward in the United States, with improvements in shipping and storage materials, glass bottles have almost completely been replaced with either LDPE coated paper cartons or recyclable HDPE plastic containers (such as square milk jugs), depending on the brand. These paper and plastic containers are lighter, cheaper and safer to both manufacture and ship to consumers.
There are concerns among a few Americans as to the quality and safety of industrialized milk. The local non-homogenized milk industry has seen a popular resurgence in certain markets in the US in the last decade or so. Because of this, the use of glass bottles in local or regional, non-industrial milk distribution has become an increasingly common sight.
In some countries (e.g. Estonia and some provinces of Canada), it is common to buy milk in a milk bag.
(Wikipedia)