3. Firozabad's Bangles Industry and its Colonial Legacy

Export and blown glass never have been the main production focus in Firozabad. The glass cluster is rather known as India's main glass bangles production center. Though bangles are considered a traditional good in India, their industrial production in Firozabad is linked to colonial global exchanges. In the 19th century, the glass bangles craftmanship was very pronounced in Firozabad and the surrounding region, as it was in other parts of India. Here, they were made by a Muslim caste of bangle sellers called the Manihars who later took the title of Sheeshgarh. But the bangles were then made singly, one by one, in a clay furnace, by craftsmen who rolled a small ball of molten glass into a turning stone cone (kalbhut), to stretch it into a bangle. In the second half of the 19th century, this craft was threatened by the industrial production of bangles coming from China, Japan, and Europe. One of the European traders,  Albert Sachse, developed from 1965 a very successful bangles production business. Sachse was from Jablonec , a Czech city specializing in beads. Models would be sent to Asia and then copied, allowing for the rise of cheap intensive production. Sachse invented a system consisting of glass cylinders cut into rings by a machine, a device that goods more quickly than the Indian craftsmen.