Product Details

Historical Context

Based in Creighton, Pennsylvania (about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh along the Allegheny River), PPG soon became the United States' first commercially successful producer of high-quality, thick flat glass using the plate process. PPG was also the world's first plate glass plant to power its furnaces with locally produced natural gas, an innovation which rapidly stimulated widespread industrial use of the cleaner-burning fuel.

PPG expanded quickly. By 1900, known as the "Glass Trust", it included 10 plants, had a 65 percent share of the U.S. plate glass market, and had become the nation's second largest producer of paint.

On December 19, 1968 the company changed its name to PPG Industries, Inc., to show its diverse offerings. Ditzler Color Company, established in 1902 in Detroit as an automotive color concern, was purchased by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (now PPG) in 1928. In the mid-1980s, Cipisa, a Spanish paint company was acquired and renamed PPG Ibérica. The CEO of Cipisa, Pere Nadal Carres became CEO of PPG Ibérica.

In 1990 PPG founded Transitions Optical as a joint venture with Essilor.

Related Collections