History of Eyeglasses
The Coming of Spectacles
In 1268, philosopher Roger Bacon noted that examining letters through glass shaped like the lesser segment of a sphere with the cortex side toward the eye, made the letters easier to see. In 1289, it was written that glasses, known as spectacles, were invented for people with weak sight. This dates the invention of the first spectacles from 1268-1289; the inventor is unknown.
Concave lenses appeared in Italy in the 16th century. The first spectacles used quartz lenses set into metal with leather or bone mountings, and resembled two magnifying glasses with handles. Spectacles migrated to Germany, France, and Spain, and the first spectacle company opened in England in 1629.
Seventeenth-century Spanish spectacle makers attached silk ribbons that looped over the ears; the Chinese removed the loops and attached weights. Solid side sections were developed in London in 1730, followed by hinges and colored lenses 20 years later.
Coming to America In the 1780s, Benjamin Franklin got the idea to take two strengths of eyeglasses, cut them in half, and place two strengths of lenses in one circle. Commercially standardized bifocal reading glasses were patented in the late 1800s; their awkwardness and ugliness kept consumers from purchasing them until the turn of the 20th century. Pince-nez (spectacles without earpieces, pinched to the bridge of the nose and held on a cord or chain around the neck) were popular for men and women in the 1840's. Metal reading glasses were used until the Civil War broke out in 1860. At that time, hard rubber frames were used for eyeglasses. In the late 1800s, most patients were fitted according to age from a box of pre-made eyeglasses. Large round lenses and tortoise shell frames were popular in 1914. Fashionable eyeglasses and sunglasses became popular in the 1930s. |  |