Inventor of CorningWare glass dies

DES MOINES, Iowa — Stanley Donald Stookey is no household name, but his best-known invention truly is: CorningWare, the durable, heat-resistant ceramic glass used since the 1950s to make millions upon millions of baked lasagnas, tuna casseroles and other potluck-dinner dishes.

The scientist, who died Tuesday at 99, created a type of glass so strong that the military used it in guided missile nose cones. His space-age material found a home in most American kitchens in the form of white dishes decorated with small blue flowers.

Stookey died at an assisted living center in Rochester, N.Y., said his son Donald Stookey. He said his father broke a hip in a fall a few months ago and underwent surgery, but his health deteriorated.

Stookey joined Corning Glass Works in New York in 1940, the same year he graduated with a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He immersed himself in research, studying the complex chemistry of oxidation and its effects on glass, according to a company biography.

In 1952, he placed a plate of glass into an oven to heat it, but the oven malfunctioned. Instead of heating to 600 degrees Celsuis, the oven shot up to 900 degrees. Stookey expected to find a molten mess. Instead, he found an opaque, milky-white plate. Removing it from the oven, his tongs slipped, and the plate fell to the floor. But rather than shatter, it bounced.

He had discovered glass ceramics, which Corning patented as Pyroceram. By the end of the 1950s, the work led to CorningWare, one of the company’s most successful product lines.