Monongah Glass Secretaries Primrose Etched Crystal Goblet
Here’s a mystery for you. Why would a glass company call a pattern “Secretaries Primrose”? This etched goblet is line 800 from Monongah Glass, and yes, the pattern name is Secretaries Primrose.
I’ve no idea why the name. Monongah is long out of business so this will remain a mystery.
Monongah is best known for their Springtime etch, which has a lady dancing with scarves set inside a medallion surrounded by swags and scrolls. This is the pattern that Hocking Glass converted to the mass-produced Cameo depression glass. Hocking took the intricate plate etching, that required considerable effort by skilled artisans, to a mold etch that took work by the mold designer. Once the mold was made Hocking could make thousands of pieces with little or no artisan effort. Of course that was much less expensive and one reason Hocking survived the Depression and Monongah did not.
Hocking bought Monongah in the early 1930s. One reason Monongah’s glass is less well-known is there have not been books about Monongah as there have about Fostoria, Heisey or Cambridge. John P. Zastowey produced a good reference on Lancaster Glass that included sections on Standard Glass and Monongah. (Hocking bought Lancaster and Standard.) In fact John purchased several Secretaries Primrose stems from me to photograph for his next book.
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