The original magazine sidebar offered these two speculative origin stories for the glassblowing term; they are folklore, not an established etymology.
The name “glory hole” is thought to have originated in the late 1600s in Venice when glassblowers used a hole in the ground filled with burning coals to reheat their gathered glass. Supposedly, if someone slipped and fell into this furnace-in-the-ground, they “went on to their glory.” Another equally poetic origin story is that the smoke and dust in the air created the illusion of a halo around the workers’ heads in the light from the furnace, giving the impression that the “glory of God” was radiating from them.
From the Spring 2023 (archive attribution) issue.