History
Corning Glass Works was founded in 1851 by Amory Houghton, in Somerville, Massachusetts, originally as the Bay State Glass Co.[12] It later moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and operated as the Brooklyn Flint Glass Works. The company moved again to its ultimate home and eponym, the city of Corning, New York, in 1868, under leadership of the founder's son, Amory Houghton Jr.
In 1915, Corning created an improved heat resistant glass formula and launched Pyrex, the first-ever consumer cooking products made with temperature-resistant glass, in 1915.[13]
The California Institute of Technology's 200 in telescope mirror at Palomar Observatory was cast by Corning during 1934–1936, out of low expansion borosilicate glass.[14] In 1932, George Ellery Hale approached Corning with the challenge of fabricating the required optic for his Palomar project. A previous effort to fabricate the optic from fused quartz had failed. Corning's first attempt was a failure, the cast blank having voids. Using lessons learned, Corning was successful in the casting of the second blank. After a year of cooling, during which it was almost lost to a flood, in 1935, the blank was completed. The first blank now resides in Corning's Museum of Glass.
In 1935, Corning formed a joint venture with bottle maker Owens-Illinois, creating the company now known as Owens Corning. They spun off Owens Corning as an independent company in 1938, and it went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1952.
The company had a history of science-based innovations following World War II and the strategy by management was research and "disruptive" and "on demand" product innovation.[15]
In 1962, Corning developed Chemcor, a new toughened automobile windshield designed to be thinner and lighter than existing windshields, which reduced danger of personal injury by shattering into small granules when smashed.[16] This toughened glass had a chemically hardened outer layer, and its manufacture incorporated an ion exchange and a "fusion process" in special furnaces that Corning built in its Christiansburg, Virginia facility.[15][17] Corning developed it as an alternative to laminated windshields with the intention of becoming an automotive industry supplier.[15] After being installed as side glass in a limited run of 1968 Plymouth Barracudas and Dodge Darts, Chemcor windshields debuted on the 1970 model year Javelins and AMXs built by American Motors Corporation (AMC).[17] As there were no mandatory safety standards for motor vehicle windshields, the larger automakers had no financial incentive to change from the cheaper existing products.[15]
In late 1970, the company announced that researchers Robert D. Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter C. Schultz, and Frank Zimar had demonstrated an optical fiber with a low optical attenuation of 17 dB per kilometer by doping silica glass with titanium.[18] A few years later they produced a fiber with only 4 dB/km, using germanium oxide as the core dopant. Such low attenuations made fiber optics practical for telecommunications and networking. Corning became the world's leading manufacturer of optical fiber.
In 1977, considerable attention was given to Corning's Z Glass project. Z Glass was a product used in television picture tubes. Due to a number of factors, the exact nature of which are subject to dispute, this project was considered a steep loss in profit and productivity. The following year the project made a partial recovery. This incident has been cited as a case study by the Harvard School of Business.[19]
In 1982, Corning purchased a 6.5 percent stake in Genentech and, as part of the same agreement, the two companies formed an equal joint venture called Genencor to develop industrial enzymes using recombinant DNA technology.[20]
In 1998, the kitchenware division of Corning Inc. responsible for the development of Pyrex spun off from its parent company as Corning Consumer Products Company, subsequently renamed Corelle Brands. Corning Inc. no longer manufactures or markets consumer products, only industrial ones.[21]
Company profits soared in the late 1990s during the dot-com boom, and Corning expanded its fiber operations significantly through the acquisition of telecommunications company Oak Industries[22] and building several new plants. The company also entered the photonics market, investing heavily with the intent of becoming the leading provider of complete fiber-optic systems. Failure to succeed in photonics and the collapse in 2000 of the dot-com market had a major impact on the company, and Corning stock plummeted to $1 per share. However, as of 2007 the company had posted five straight years of improving financial performance.
In 2013, Samsung Display sold its stake in its decades-long CRT glass venture to Corning.[23]
