Here's the identical chap,
Who put Vitrolite on the map,
That's the stuff when you spill,
Any soup on it will,
Gently slide the said soup on your lap.
 
Structural pigmented glass, the generic phrase for Vitrolite and its competitors, was the perfect marriage of new technology to human imagination, wrote Rosemary Thornton of Old House Web. It appears to have been invented for the production of tiles of 'opalite' in Britain in the 1880s, possibly by Anthony Shelmerdine of Garth (near Ruabon) or maybe Liverpool, and was subject to a successful court case for an 1893 patent infringement in 1901 on behalf of the National Opalite Glazed Brick & Tile Company (or Syndicate) Ltd, which went bankrupt in 1908.
 
In the USA Henry Sage of the Opalite Tile Company in Pittsburg appears to have filed the first U.S. patent for an improvement in the manufacture of structural pigmented glass tiles in 1900, which was granted in 1903. All the early tiles appear to have consisted of a thin opal glass bonded to a thicker structural ceramic substrate.
 
Between 1900 and 1910 several new US companies emerged with the market leaders appearing to be the Marietta Manufacturing Company with Sani Onyx (Rox), the Penn-American Plate Glass Company with white and black Carrara Glass around 1906, and Libby-Owens-Ford Glass with Vitrolite in 1907.
 
Over his lifetime Daniel Beebe took out a number of patents for glass-making, and at least one for a way of joining 'structural glass' - his generic term for what he called, and we now know as, Vitrolite. He founded The Vitrolite Company in Parkersburg, West Virginia, around 1907, which grew into a substantial global enterprise.
 
By 1922 the official reference book of the Chicago press club stated:
Cleanliness, to be a real advertisement, must be apparent. The Vitrolite Company, by the manufacture of pure white Vitrolite counters and table tops, wainscoting and ceilings, has made cleanliness profitable in restaurants, hospitals, homes and in many other capacities.
 
In the restaurant, the sparkling clean whiteness of Vitrolite counters and table tops is a standing invitation to tarry. Its delightfully cool surface is just the place to serve palatable drinks and dainties. It keeps clean " nothing stains it and it just wears and wears. Vitrolite eliminates use of expensive table coverings and the incidental cost of laundering and linen replacement. It is economical because it cuts overhead " profitable because it builds a better business for the owner.
 
Vitrolite has also been put to use in a number of the modern hospitals. The architect who specializes in the design of hospitals knows only too well the insistent demand for scientific sanitation in everything that enters into the construction and equipment of an operating, diet and utility room, as well as the laboratory. Vitrolite is aseptic and can be installed in large slabs so that seams and joints are reduced to a minimum, thus eliminating to a very considerable degree the space that is ideal for the germinating and propagating of bacteria. No chemicals can possibly stain or react with Vitrolite; it does not craze and can be sterilized without injury. Permanence is also an important feature of Vitrolite walls and ceilings.
 
Vitrolite is the product of the fusion at 3,000" Fahrenheit, of sand, feldspar, fluorspar, kryolith, and several other natural ingredients, which, in passing from a fluid state to that of a solid, becomes homogeneous in substance, impermeable to the absorption of foreign matter and acid-resisting. It is manufactured in the form of large slabs of various thicknesses, which are subjected to a thorough process of annealing, making them tough, with a tensile strength and surface wearing qualities that are said to exceed even those of marble.
 
Vitrolite may be called scientifically sanitary because it has a natural fire polished surface that is non-porous, therefore, non-absorbent. The surface of Vitrolite is said to possess greater abrasive resistance than marble. Vitrolite is of a uniform texture and its depth of rich white color gives it the appearance of wholesome cleanliness which completes its sanitary qualities. Organic acids have no effect on Vitrolite.
 
The Vitrolite Company was founded in 1907, with a capital of $125,000. Its present capitalization is $900,000. In its first year, the volume of business approximated $54,000. In 1922, it reached the figure of $1,500,000. G. R. Meyercord is president; D. S. Beebe, vice president and treasurer; J. W. Wiley, secretary and assistant treasurer. Directors are G. R. Meyercord, D. S. Beebe, James B. Day, James H. Furman, William H. Powell. The main offices are at 133 W. Washington street, Chicago.
 
The plant behind the Vitrolite product covers six acres of ground at Parkersburg, W. Va., and is capable of producing 5,000,000 square feet of material each year. To meet the foreign demand, there have been formed in the principal cities of the United States, in Cuba, England, China and Japan, separate organizations composed of thoroughly trained Vitrolite specialists who carry a stock of material and have the necessary machinery to work it and who are capable of making proper installation.
 
Not a lot is known about the personal life of the man Beebe, but In 1920 Daniel Sharpe Beebe was in court at Bridewell 'the meticulously guarded gathering place for matrimony's bad boys' in Cook county. The Lawrence Journal World reported on 20th December 'today's arrival was Daniel S. Beebe, former president of the Vitrolite company, in for the usual six months because he was $24,800 in arrears in alimony payments. Despite his plea for holiday clemency, Mrs Etta Marker Beebe, his divorced wife, insisted that he be locked up because he had given her but $300 in the last three years.'
 
In 1923 a cartoon shows Mr. Beebe, vice-president and general manager of The Vitrolite Company driving a Paige car, duck-shooting and fishing, with the limerick above.
 
Other snippets about Vitrolite, Beebe or structural pigmented glass still wanted. Please send to Salvo.