Devilbiss art glass perfume atomizer

DeVilbiss's son Tom, who took over the business in 1905, diversified the company to include perfume atomizers as well as medical ones. After WWI, soldiers came home from France bearing gifts of perfume with ornate dispensers and the atomizer craze took hold. In their heyday in the mid twenties, DeVilbiss sold as many as a million perfumers per year in America alone, not including outlets in Europe, Canada, and Cuba. They had several hundred employees, plus a few hundred part time local ladies who crocheted the bulb nettings- but the good times didn't last. After fighting a depressed market for many years, the company gave up manufacturing atomizers. The DeVilbiss company is still very much alive in Somerset, Pennsylvania, but now they concentrate on medical equipment- heavy duty compressors and huge paint sprayers.

DeVilbiss did not make the glass for their perfumers, only the hardware, cords, and bulbs for the atomizers. They would design a bottle and send the model to Steuben, Cambridge or Fenton glass factories, where they were produced in the types of glass specified and sent back to DeVilbiss. You've probably seen the Steuben blue and gold Aurene atomizers that are signed DeVilbiss, the Cambridge draped ladies and Fenton's lovely hobnail atomizers.

When the hardware was assembled, the bottles were either script signed, stamped, or a gummed label was attached. Regardless of the glass maker, only the name DeVilbiss was used. The quality and wide variety of style and oclor make these atomizers highly prized today, whether signed or not.