NATCHEZ — Glass in a house in the 1700 and 1800s was as much of an indicator of wealth as the house itself.

Jane Spillman, curator of American glass at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, N.Y., said glass was an expensive commodity and the amount present in a house was directly related to the homeowners economic status.

Spillman was a featured speaker during Friday’s lectures at the Pilgrimage Garden Club Antiques Forum.

All class prior to the Revolutionary War had to be imported from Europe, making it expensive to homeowners. For that reason, Spillman said, only the very rich had much glass at all.

“Glass was very formal as it was patterned after English tradition,” she told the room full of attendees.

“(Settlers) would send tobacco to an agent in London and tell the agent what they needed,” she said.

During a formal dinner, Spillman said, there would be a large quantity of glass on the table, but it wasn’t all drinking glasses. Glass was also used in service pieces, especially during the dessert course.

Beer, wine and ale would be served in glass decanters.

“A middle class family wouldn’t have a table set full of glass,” Spillman said. “Outside of the cities and off of the plantations, there was almost no glass used.”

With the invention of the glass press in the 1820s in America, glass production became a profitable business. Prior to that, several glass making companies started, but they all failed to thrive.

But after the glass press was put to work, American glassmakers were able to being mass-producing pressed glass pieces.

“It didn’t take long before pressed glass became popular in Europe, and it was shipped there from America,” Spillman said.

Also because of the invention of pressed glass, middle class families were able to afford more glass pieces, including drinking glasses, serving pieces, decorative displays and lamps.

Spillman was one of four speakers on Friday. Lectures were also presented on American art, non-precious metals and Baltimore furniture.

The theme for this year’s antiques forum is “The Golden Age: Antiques in the Antebelllum South, 1780-1860.”

The forum is a fundraiser for the Pilgrimage Garden Club with funds going toward the preservation of the clubs two properties, Longwood and Stanton Hall.

The forum continues Saturday at 9 a.m. with a lecture titled “Feathers, Fur and Flowers: Prints of Southern Flora and Fauna” by Christopher Lane, co-owner of The Philadelphia Print Shop.

A lecture on the Natchez furniture trade will be presented by Ron Miller, former director of the Historic Natchez Foundation, at 10 a.m. today.

All lectures are in the ballroom of the Natchez Grand Hotel.

The forum wraps up with a lunch and tours of three private Natchez homes.

One-day tickets for Saturday are $125. Registration is at the Natchez Grand Hotel.