Through the Looking Glass: A History of Mirrors

The market research firm reports and data estimated the Global mirror market size to be $122 billion dollars in 2021, reflecting the huge demand for mirrors in all manner of projects. The human desire to see themselves goes back to antiquity and continues unabated to the modern day.
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This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
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All events are portrayed in historical context and for educational purposes. No images or content are primarily intended to shock and disgust. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Non censuram.
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Script by JCG
#history #thehistoryguy #mirror

[@chuckokelley2448]

I was a hand blown Glass worker From 1975 to 2001 I gathered the glass out of the tank and prepared it for the blower. I help make the big boulevard up on the poles around the mall in Washington DC. They look white but they're actually 30 pounds of crystal glass with 2 pounds of white in the Center. I was the one that provided the white core.

[@lococomrade3488]

Your legacy is epic. ❤

[@binyon7]

Binyön was hand-blown once.

[@DelectableDays]

Citation needed

[@lococomrade3488]

@dumblejew1015 He is the citation, dork. You can't cite personal experience as if it's a textbook. 🙄

[@lococomrade3488]

@kealiicooper4756 Yall want this guys pay stubs to prove he worked at a place at a certain time period? It's truly not that important. Again: he is the Citation.

[@goodun2974]

After viewing this finely polished episode of The History Guy, I fnd myself in a reflective mood....😉

[@hoodagooboy5981]

I 'see' your point.

[@albertchehade9916]

@@hoodagooboy5981 comedic relief.......

[@judithzylstra929]

​@@albertchehade99162:00

[@shutupshelley1793]

Bahaha!!😂😂

[@spankflaps1365]

I notice a lot of drivers who still haven’t discovered mirrors

[@dannyjones3840]

😂😂😂😂

[@JA51711]

😂

[@Eric_Hutton.1980]

Or the low beam for their headlights.

[@invertedpolarity6890]

Or turn signals.

[@shaneabrahamson8732]

I knew a woman so vain, she adjusted her rear view mirror to look at herself when she drove.

[@greggi47]

That reference to Gutenberg's mirrors sewn into hats to allow a harvesting of the benefits of holy relics at a distance somehow connects in my mind with the habit of people using their phones to record events and sights instead of participating directly.

[@nline2blast722]

Lol, yeah

[@stevedietrich8936]

THG, this episode reflects very well on your ability to produce quality videos three times a week.

[@rsr789]

Those puns don't write themselves 😉

[@dranet47]

I am imagining all those rich people who bought mirrors back then taking a ton of selfies if they had that option. Good stuff, as usual HG!

[@DefenderoftheTrees]

I believe they called them portraits back then lol

[@RetiredSailor60]

Good morning from Ft Worth TX History Guy and everyone watching..

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

I have the Mirror my mother received as a gift from the Chinese embassy while we were living in Japan it was more than 2,000 years old. In the 80's I met people from the the Miramonte family they were making glass beads that would be perfect for the Pandora bracelets. I made a few things. 😌

[@skyden24195]

Neat. 😊

[@Oliverdobbins]

You know, I have a mirror that makes me look 2,000 years old.

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

@@Oliverdobbins It may be broken!

[@andrewstevenson118]

@@Oliverdobbins Very good. 🙂

[@L0rdOfThePies]

@@Oliverdobbinscould be a good or bad thing depending on how old you are

[@stevedietrich8936]

THG, many of the mirrors that are used in modern astronomical observatories are made in the mirror lab at the University of Arizona. Unless policies have recently changed they do offer tours of the facility. It is beneath the football stadium. Some of the mirrors are up to 27 feet in diameter and take years to fabricate and polish.

[@stellviahohenheim]

nobody asked

[@Cangelo629]

Never knew where the facility is located that's interesting that they used the stadium underground to manufacture telescope mirrors thank you.

[@riverraisin1]

Thanks. I was just going to ask about that! 😊

[@joegordon5117]

I always find it fascinating that items we take pretty much for granted today were once not only rare, but actually jealously guarded state secrets - glass making techniques, map-making etc - on which lives could depend.

[@Svensk7119]

Silk as well. Egg incubating.

[@mudgebauer]

@@Svensk7119 New York Pizza too.

[@alphagt62]

I noticed that the mirror was rolled out kind of like televisions in the modern world. He said at one point mirrors were in 70% of European homes, that’s about the number of televisions in 1960. Eventually there was a mirror in every room, now, we’ve got TV’s in nearly every room.

[@artistjoh]

@@alphagt62 I doubt it was 70% of homes had a TV in 1960. I grew up on a farm and I still remember our neighbor getting one in 1963. It was the first one in the district and farmers came from miles away just to see the TV, and there was a big party. There were plenty of excuses to visit the neighbors after that. My father got our first one in 1964 so he could see the Olympic Games. When we went into town for supplies a couple of times a month it was always a long day that ended late and it was dark when we were heading home. We would see people gathered around the window of the electrical store. Whole families would be there, some brought folding chairs to watch the TV that would be on in the window. That didn't stop until the early 70's. That is why I would be surprised at 70% of homes having a TV in 1960. It might have been true in large cities, but was much rarer in smaller towns and rural areas. Being a rural area, TV was on for only a few hours in the evening, and because of problems with broadcasting equipment back then it was common for there to be interruptions of service, and a picture of a flower or something like that and the word "interlude" would be on the screen while a technician would diagnose the problem and replace a vacuum tube or something like that. There was always "snow" in the picture, but when it rained, or was foggy, or it was very windy there would be more snow than picture. We used to put one or two layers of cellophane over the screen as that helped with seeing a picture. In the early 70's I moved to a larger city, once I had a job, and bought myself a Sony Trinitron color TV and I left those days of unreliable television behind. The memory of it remains, but people who didn't experience the early days of television in rural areas don't realize how primitive it was.

[@NoahSpurrier]

Nuclear weapons, too.

[@goodun2974]

Early lasers made with rod-shaped emerald or ruby crystals required a finely- silvered mirror finish on the ends of the crystal; a pulse of light directed into the crystal would reflect back-and-forth inside the crystal from end to end and be amplified until finally it would burst through one end ofthe crystal without damaging the silvered surface. Hey, THG, how about doing an episode on the history of lasers?

[@Phexyn]

Starting with: A long long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away … 😂

[@girlnextdoorgrooming]

Help me, History Guy. You're my only hope!

[@johnlacey3857]

THG you never cease to amaze me at the depth of fascinating topics you come up with. Well done, and thank you!!

[@OneCatholicSpeaks]

In Celtic cultures, when someone died you covered all of the mirrors in the house. They stayed covered until the person was buried. The belief was if the spirit of the deceased saw a mirror’s reflection, they could get confused on the way out of the house and get trapped.

[@startrekiborg]

I’m surprised you never mentioned the origin of the myth that you’ll have seven years bad luck if you brake a mirror. I don’t remember where I heard it, but I believe it was from the time it would take to replace a broken mirror.

[@michaelgallagher3640]

Not a myth

[@JTA1961]

​@@michaelgallagher3640 just a pane...

[@goodun2974]

That myth about 7 years bad luck from breaking a mirror goes back to Roman times. The practice of covering mirrors when someone dies and the household is in the mourning is an ancient Jewish religious proscription that spread to other cultures and religions. Another part of that mourning process is not only covering mirrors and perhaps even turning them to face the wall, but may include flipping the mattress over on the bed. (Life begins in a bed ---- well, sometimes it does, and sometimes it begins in the back seat of a car 😉 ---- and often ends in a bed, so you flip the mattress over. Fortunately, no religion I know of says that you should flip the car over when somebody dies ! 🤔🤣🤣)

[@LateBoomer-sl1dk]

​@@goodun2974I'm interested in the psychology of mirror. There's always a bit of a mystical feeling, but it seems there is less of it as the tech gets more advanced. But people who trip on acid say don't look in them. There seems to be a feeling that there's another world in there.

[@QuatroAtYale]

The Mixtec deity Texcatlipoca was also known as Smoking Mirror, and is shown with an obsidian mirror foot.

[@ninjaswordtothehead]

I don't know why, but it makes me happy that such an awesome and intelligent channel is from the same town as me.

[@poliveri0722]

@13:00 ... Really??? A refracting telescope as an example of 'an aluminum coated telescope mirror'?

[@-jeff-]

Thank you THG for this reflection into history.

[@davidhinkson8856]

It's always fascinating the kind of topics you come up with! Who'd have thought mirrors, something we truly take for granted now, had such a long history?

[@roberthogue5138]

Also when Lewis and Clark wanted to find their latitude( which at sea a navigator could use the horizon to measure the angle- of a celestial object}they used a tray of mercury

[@IturisForest]

Thank you ❤

[@goodun2974]

For a glimpse of how earlier generations of humans might have behaved when first seeing their reflection in a high-quality mirror, watch a puppy or kitten seeing itself in a mirror for the first time!

[@1locust1]

When my cat was a kitten he thoroughly intimidated himself in front of a mirror.

[@celeste4098]

Watch a baby or the reaction of people in non contacted civilization

[@ashcustomworks]

Interesting to hear the name Saint Gobain and its place in history. In my previous job I used Saint Gobain abrasives to polish lacquer to a mirror finish. In my current job the windscreens of the trains I drive are made by Saint Gobain. And now that I think of it, they don't have rear view mirrors at all.

[@dannyjones3840]

Thanks for another great history lesson Lance!

[@pamelamays4186]

THG is so awesome, he doesn't need to look into a mirror to tie his bowtie.😎

[@skyden24195]

Nope, since it's THG's bowtie, it remembers how to tie itself. 😉😁

[@rwarren58]

“Reflecting the huge demand for mirrors…” Good Pun right off the bat! I love this channel.

[@Syl-Vee]

Thank you for offering wonderful perspective on this subject.

[@mellissadalby1402]

Wow Mr. Lance, I continue to be amaxed at the breadth and depth of research and the fascinating stories you publish. Well done, Sir!

[@nikkipdx4109]

Wonderful!

[@InglouriousBradsterd]

01:37 Quite the appropriate last name for an archaeologist!

[@roberttaylor7637]

Another fantastically intresting video. May the hair on your toes never fall out sir.

[@JTA1961]

Is that when you have to admit de~feet...??

[@kevinbarry71]

You have given us much on which to reflect

[@brettito]

Thanks for reflecting upon mirrors. Gives me a chance to see myself differently.

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

Hey History Guy 🤓and classmates 👋have a great week!

[@jetsons101]

As time passes for individuals, the mirror stays the same but the image changes....

[@paulsmodels]

It can be a good thing to stop and reflect on how other's see us, and how we see them, but it can be a scary thing to stop and see our own reflection!

[@droldsw31]

I remember the first time I seen myself in a mirror. I was amazed how deadly Handsome I was.

[@joanfrellburg4901]

Now you just have to convince the world to seen things your way.

[@goodun2974]

​@@joanfrellburg4901 , my reflection breaks mirrors and even photographs of my face scare young children. Dogs, on the other hand, love me....😉

[@joanfrellburg4901]

@@goodun2974 Ah, I get it, a dogs breakfast !🐕

[@goodun2974]

@@joanfrellburg4901 , I provide their breakfast and their dinner, and travel, affection and entertainment in between, and so to them I am a god! Or at least the pack leader anyway.... They're also better looking than I am, and people often comment on how handsome or pretty they are (that's "handsome Henry" in my thumbnail photo), which has never happened to me personally. I mean, my wife thanks I'm handsome, but if she compared me to Henry in that manner I would probably lose! A man's got to know his limitations.....

[@joanfrellburg4901]

@@goodun2974 So true but it's getting harder every day to keep those limitations from growing.🕺

[@zg-it]

Reminds me of a book called Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. The theme is mortality and immortality. The protagonist, Alabar, was a king who would lose his throne once his hair turn gray. His mistress or wife, i dont recall, was his mirror. Because he couldnt see himself to know when he went grey.

[@goodun2974]

I remember a portion of the book where a nearly dead, smelly and invisible god (Pan, IIRC, disappearing because it was the age of Enlightenment and nobody believed in him anymore) attended the funeral of Descartes, and somebody catching a whiff of the goaty funk quipped "I stink, therefore I am"!

[@goodun2974]

I wasn't particularly fond of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (the film version was awful) but Robbin's book Still Life With Woodpecker was pretty good.

[@MegaJackpinesavage]

The Hubble & James Webb space telescopes continue to display human vanity as universal, if not quite infinite. Thx, THG, for helping us to keep watch.

[@kongstankendk]

Fantastic :) how do you come of with history, that I did not know I wanted to hear. And now love.

[@thecreamyone3606]

Such a reflection of an episode

[@farhanatoerien3437]

Omg I am in love with your Channel!!’ I have looked for a documentary on this EXACT topic for AGES ❤❤❤❤

[@Grashan]

The Palladium-Item, Richmond, Indiana, on June 2nd, 1923, reported that a shop had had a customer ask for a mirror. When asked if they wanted a hand mirror, they said "no, one I can see my face in".

[@goodun2974]

Lance, about this episode I can only say, "Back at ya'!"

[@gregoryambres1897]

This man is a GENIUS

[@bloodymary3008]

It's easy to make your own scrying mirror. You just need a clear piece of glass (the larger the better), a frame, some backing black paper or a black marker on white paper.

[@stellviahohenheim]

nobody asked

[@bloodymary3008]

@@stellviahohenheim you just called yourself nobody 😂😂

[@johngregg5735]

Very interesting.

[@goodun2974]

Not mentioned here, an old technique for finding out if somebody was still alive versus being in a coma and barely breathing was to hold a mirror up to their lips and see if their breath fogged and condensed on the glass.

[@skyden24195]

You see this method a lot in movies. In particular, a mirror is used to check if the family dog is still alive prior to the family's relocating in the 1988, Richard Pryor film, "Moving."

[@goodun2974]

@@skyden24195 , It seems it is Imperative to have a scene in every vampire movie where the undead can be seen by the naked eye but it's reflection doesn't show in a mirror.

[@skyden24195]

@@goodun2974 mirrors are strange things. Even though an infrared camera is technically looking at a cold piece of glass the camera can still see heat sources reflecting in the mirror. I've always found this to be bizarre.

[@PeteOtton]

@@skyden24195 My favorite use of this was in Charade.

[@cliffwoodbury5319]

UR SHOW IS A MASTERPIECE THAT SHOULD NEVER END< BUT SINCE IT WILL ONE DAY IT IS A SHOW THAT WILL DESERVE 2 BE REMEMBERED FOREVER!!!

[@elizabethdean2532]

Perhaps your best video ever. Very interesting, thank you.

[@oltedders]

The English word "mirror" was used exclusively for a bull's eye or round, slightly convex framed glass mirror in the 18th and 19th century. Otherwise, a conventional rectangular mirror was called a looking glass.

[@Redeemedbylove1987]

When I look into my mirror, it is always reflection perfection.

[@bigbadmule407]

I love your commentaries on history. I thought the comment about mirrors affecting thoughts about individuality was very interesting. However the book of James, written before 62 CE spoke of a person seeing their reflection in a metal mirror. James 1: 23. The verse is speaking of the individual. Just something to ponder🤔🙂

[@stevenflanders7313]

At the end you mention John Strong and the development of a process of vacuum deposition of aluminum for astronomical mirrors. Yet, you show a picture of a refracting telescope. Refractors do not use mirrors as their primary light gathering devices.

[@markbaker9459]

Mirror, mirror, on the wall..: Amazing issue of those about to fall… Interesting compilation surrounding this subject. Mahalo!

[@orbyfan]

A mention of fun house mirrors would have been welcome.

[@JTA1961]

Enter the dragon...

[@jerryshunk7152]

Mirror = more individual consciousness ! Definite food for thought !

[@frankgulla2335]

A great tale of the history of reflection nad mirrors. Thank you, THG

[@katiekane5247]

I'm unsure of the spelling, I was just a kid when I remember my new step dad working as a glass architect for ASG industries. I asked what it stood for, he told me American St. Gobain. It's mention here sparked an old memory!

[@jeffhorne3983]

The telescope shown at 13:00 is a refracting telescope with glass lenses at the front end and not a reflecting telescope with an aluminized mirror. It is the 40 inch at the former Yerkes observatory.

[@lawrenrich-nf3ni]

I saw a lot of myself in this episode. Thx thg …

[@TM-ev2tc]

Don't break a mirror, unless you want seven years of bad luck. Have a good day.

[@goodun2974]

I smashed dozens of mirrors in a badly fire damaged house as a kid and my luck hasn't been particularly any better or any worse than anyone else's. If that old admonition was true that fire damaged house would have fallen down on my head. ( My best friend and I were given permission to take anything we wanted from the house prior to it being demolished, and so we had fun smashing every mirror in the place, of which there were literally dozens for some reason, as well as breaking all the windows.)

[@1locust1]

Watching this video at a table in a hotel room with a large wall mirror directly in front of me. A bit distracting. I"m going to find a piece of cardboard to block the view. 1:00 The original "black mirror". I was always fascinated with infinity mirrors when I was younger. Great video as always. =b d=

[@NavigatEric]

topics taken-for-granted or mundane, like mirrors or screws, THG makes interesting, even fascinating! The only thing breezed over is the extensive use of mirrors in our technological world. Optics (even at wavelengths beyond human vision) are very important and mirrors are key to re-directing light rays in countless instruments. f.x. helioscopes: a telescope that studies the sun, uses a pool of liquid mercury 1 meter across rotated on a turntable to form a meniscus mirror form to reflect and focus an image at Sunspot Solar Observatory, New Mexico. Speeding it up changes the focal length. Very clever and worth mentioning.

[@MarshOakDojoTimPruitt]

thanks

[@seattlegrrlie]

What a thought, that people 9,000yrs ago were looking into polished stone mirrors to check their hair before meeting a lover

[@Bbbuddy]

“Hide their disgrace through learning.” The first nerds.

[@nline2blast722]

What a sad statement thought... beauty is best but if your ungly... go learn something useful....

[@jb6027]

Great topic idea!

[@dalehuff5740]

Thanks!

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

Thank you!

[@glennquagmire1747]

Fascinating 👍

[@d.c.8828]

I would love a video on the history of glass.

[@steveshoemaker6347]

O to see ones self ?...I think it it good to ones self when we are young but when we get old not so much.....Thanks to THG🎀

[@ababilashari9970]

thanks for this video :) helped with my writing haha

[@rejvaik00]

🎶 _I'm looking at you through the glass_ 🎶 🎶 _Don't know how much time has passed_ 🎶 🎶 _All I know is that feels like forever_ 🎶 🎶 _And no one ever tells you that forever feels like home_ 🎶 🎶 _Sitting all alone inside your head_ 🎶

[@NoahSpurrier]

Speculum metal was the alloy used in the mirror of the first Newtonian reflective telescope.

[@jamestregler1584]

Love your tung in cheek intro 😂

[@Goatcha_M]

Mesoamericans erven had a god named 'Smoking Mirrror' Tezcatlipoca, god of Obsidian. He is depicted with various mirrors about his person.

[@candyflair7946]

Very interesting. That is a lot of history for something we take for granted.

[@BogeyTheBear]

1:52 If you're wondering why pieces like this are definitely _not_ polished to a mirror finish, you have to understand the concept of thermal cycling. Every day, the sun warms up the surrounding environment. Every night, things cool off. There are 365 days in a year, so a 500-year old object has seen the sun rise and set 182,500 times or more. When you heat up an object, it expands slightly, and it contracts when it cools. Many objects, but especially that made of stone, will experience a tiny amount of flexing during these expansion/contraction cycles which work themselves into mircrofractures that will, over the centuries, cause the surface to flake away. This is the reason modern museums keep artifacts enclosed in climate-controlled display cases: To maintain a constant temperature and mitigate any further thermal cycles on the artifact.

[@E5PY]

I'm so grateful to have found your channel. Please normalize your volume. It's not always, but sometimes your intros or outros are way too loud.

[@glenmartin2437]

That was interesting. Thanks.

[@johncremeans969]

The introduction of mirrors to society correlates with the artist as personality infact we don't know most of the artist names prior to the mirror the individual artist was not considered a thing but with the mirror you began to see self-portraits

[@DeconvertedMan]

Something to reflect upon.

[@dianespears6057]

Excellent as usual. Thank you.

[@patmcbride9853]

I had a 6x5 mirror on the wall of my bathroom when I bought my current home. Some past homeowner must have thought that was a good idea. I took it down because I don't need to see so much of myself, and I want the storage a medicine cabinet provides.

[@choryferguson2196]

Thanks for great content, again, as always!

[@dionnedunsmore9996]

Lol the mirror shown around ths 9.33 spot is bigger than the house i live in!!🤯🪞 WOE!!!!! LOOK at the size of THAT ONE! (@11:03) Great post, thanks for sharing w us!😊

[@BasicDrumming]

I appreciate you, thank you for making content.

[@Larrym-rz5bk]

Great video but the telescope at 12:50 has no mirrors. The Yerkes refractor is the world's largest.

[@jonathanwetherell3609]

I shall take time to reflect on that episode.

[@randolphpatterson5061]

When mentioning the technique for coating telescope mirrors, the telescope shown is actually a refractor design, which uses only lenses and contains no mirrors. However, it's an understandable incongruity, since in the photo the scope's optics are hidden from view.

[@goodun2974]

As a teenager, there had been a bad fire in a nearby home and it was going to be knocked down, and the owners told us we could salvage anything we wanted from within the home. For some reason there were literally dozens of mirrors in this relatively small beach cottage, and my best friend and I brought hatchets and hammers and broke every single mirror in the place! (Broke all the windows too). If the old legends about bad luck from breaking mirrors were true, I would be cursed from then to eternity. (Actually, since we were walking around in a halfway burned-out house with structural damage, if breaking those mirrors gave us bad luck the entire place would have fallen down on our heads. Nobody really gave a thought to that possibilty when they said we could go ahead and rummage around in there! Nowadays the fire department would insist on it being boarded up immediately so nobody could go inside).

[@stellviahohenheim]

nobody asked

[@JTA1961]

Nowadays you'd probably be looking at a "glass action " lawsuit

[@goodun2974]

@@JTA1961 ouch! That one cuts like a shard of glass! 😁

[@jetsons101]

After this episode I now have something to reflect on..... "Sorry, I'll go home now"

[@LouisHansell]

@0:36...The Ancient Greeks understood the lesson of the Myth of Narcissus that Narcissus did NOT think he saw himself, he didn't recognize himself...he saw a stranger who fascinated him.. He didn't recognize himself, naturally, since people weren't used to seeing their own visage.

[@goodun2974]

The history of "magic" mirrors in movies and books, as portals to other dimensions, could almost get it's own episode. Through the Looking Glass, aka Alice in Wonderland, is one such, but was it the first or were there earlier novels that used a mirror portal as a plot device?

[@johnopalko5223]

No, not "aka." They are two different books. _Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There_ is the sequel to _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland._

[@jennifersalt3194]

Alice only goes through a mirror in the second book (helpfully called “Through the Looking Glass”). In the first book (“Alice in Wonderland”), she falls down a literal rabbit hole.

[@goodun2974]

@@jennifersalt3194 , I read one, or both, nearly 60 years and thousands of rabbit holes ago, so my memory is a bit hazy!

[@Space_Debris]

A combination of mirrors makes a lens for any number of devices.

[@quillmaurer6563]

Interesting mentions of the Saint-Gobain mirror factory - I've seen that name on modern auto glass. Would have been interesting to mention its history since the era of mirror development.

[@HM2SGT]

*"I haven't seen this much love in room since narcissus discovered himself!"* ~Hades

[@doriWyo]

Lately, I've been looking in mirrors and mistaking myself for some old lady!

[@JTA1961]

I resemble that remark (except an old man)

[@thcrtn]

It's funny I have a huge mirror in my bathroom and I see myself but I don't look at myself, I'm busy seeing details... "Spot checking" not so much "me"