Christmas tree ornament

By 1887 paper Christmas tree ornaments had become so popular that the fashionable "Ladies' Home Journal" felt compelled to reject them. Fortunately for readers, glass ornaments were becoming widely available at the same time. The delicate, blown-glass ornaments, which have since become a staple of the American celebration of Christmas, first appeared in the 1860s. Rare at first due to their fragility, they were easier to obtain in the 1880s, when dime-store magnate F.W. Woolworth offered them in his stores. Initially skeptical about their potential popularity, Woolworth sold out his first shipment within two days, eventually making much of his fortune on ornaments like this one.