Yes, they're everywhere. Even more ubiquitous than leopard print clothing and distressed jeans, Mason jars are oh-so 2013. For years, Millennials have been using these preservative containers as ironic cocktail and cold-pressed-coffee holders.

The current generation of 30-somethings wasn't the first to get cheap utility by using Mason jars for drinks. Their Baby-boomer parents were well ahead of them in this fad (as they were with broken-in jeans, environmental activism, and alt music). People have made good uses out of the humble, everyday Mason jar for 150+ years, albeit with a tinge less self-referential irony than Millennials employ today. 

But why are Mason jars so common? When first brought to market by Food Disruptor cum tinkerer (aka tinsmith) John Landis Mason in 1858, his screw-top glass vessels disrupted both ancient methods of food preservation and the still-developing market for canned food. Mason figured out how a metal top-plate could be securely fit with a threaded metal ring to a complementary threaded jar-top thereby ensuring a safe vacuum seal for home canners.

The Zeitgeist was ripe for this disruption. Sugar (for preserving fruits) was becoming a cheap commodity. Urbanization meant that more people craved canned fruits and vegetables, removed as they were from agricultural sources. For the thirty-plus years prior to Mason's invention, canned food was tinned, and largely the provenance of the well-to-do -- an aspirational food. So a rising middle class wanted access to less expensive DIY canned food.

And, putting a lid on the moment, there was the treacly image of "The Angel in the House," -- the perfect cook/sex-slave/nanny/housekeeper/aka Victorian wife. What better occupation for middle-class women than to labor over dangerous cast-iron cook stoves in hellishly hot summer kitchens while putting up colorful jars of safely preserved food for their families to enjoy throughout the winter months?

Mason jars made it all possible.