Keeping Food Fresh

 

QUESTION: When I was a youngster, my family had an ice box in the kitchen. I remember when we first got it. My grandmother was in awe and my mother was overjoyed, for she could now keep food fresh for up to a week. Before that, she had to go to the grocers just about every day. Recently, I saw a beautifully restored old ice box at an antique show. Can you tell me who invented this food cold storage unit and when it first appeared in homes?

ANSWER: Before the mid 19th century, people depended on holes in the ground and spring houses to keep food cold. For the most part, people smoked meats and fish to keep them longer.

The traditional ice box dates back to the days of ice harvesting, which peaked between the 1850s and the 1930s, when manufacturers introduced the gas-powered refrigerator into American homes. However, the ice box became such a part of American culture that older people often refer to their refrigerators as ice boxes. But the real story of the ice box began in 1802.

Back then, an American farmer and cabinetmaker, Thomas Moore, needed to figure out a way to get his butter to market in solid chunks rather than a melted mass. He experimented with various methods until he came up with an ingenious solution—the ice box. His first design consisted of an oval cedar tub with a tin container fitted inside with ice between them, all wrapped in rabbit fur to insulate the device. Later versions included hollow walls that were lined with tin or zinc and packed with various insulating materials such as cork, sawdust, straw or seaweed. He placed a large block of ice in a tray near the top, so cold air could circulate down and around the tin storage compartment. Moore used his device to transport butter from his home to the Georgetown markets, allowing him to sell firm, brick butter instead of soft, melted tubs like his fellow vendors.

By 1830, Moore refined his design by making a wooden cabinet, similar to a large dresser, of hardwoods such as oak or walnut. As with his earlier versions, he lined the cabinet with zinc or tin, packed with insulating materials such as straw, flax, sawdust, cork, mineral wool, or charcoal. He tried each material to see which worked best, eventually settling on zinc.

Moore added several storage compartments inside the cabinet, with doors to each, including the ice compartment. He placed a drainage hole in it so that melted water, collected in a tray, could be emptied daily. Other ice box makers added spigots for draining the ice water.

The user had to replenish the melted ice, normally by obtaining new ice from an iceman, who delivered it by horse and wagon. The design of the ice box allowed perishable foods to be stored longer than before and without the need for lengthy preservation processes such as canning, drying, or smoking. Refrigerating perishables also had the added benefit of not altering the taste of what was preserved.

Until the late 1820s, cabinetmakers made ice boxes to order. But by the 1840s, various companies appeared including Sears & Roebuck, The Baldwin Refrigerator Company, and the Ranney Refrigerator Company began to mass produce ice boxes. Historians consider D. Eddy & Son of Boston to be the first company to produce ice boxes in large quantities. During this time, many Americans desired big ice boxes. Such companies like the Boston Scientific Refrigerator Company, introduced ice boxes which could hold up to 50 lbs of ice. A survey of New York City residents in 1907 found that 81 percent of the families surveyed owned some form of ice box.

Depending on the condition, an antique wooden ice box can be worth a lot of money. Many restored ice boxes now sell for as much as $2,000 to $3,000. It’s even possible to buy a restored antique wooden ice box that has been converted into a refrigerator or wine cooler with modern refrigeration equipment.

The usability of an antique ice box determines its actual market value The ice box’s age, size, condition, material, authenticity and provenance all contribute to its value.

Even a properly restored or professionally refinished ice box can be a good buy. While a restored or refinished model can sell for as little as $2,000, extremely rare ice boxes in good condition can cost as much as $10,000.

With those prices, it’s a good idea to make sure an ice box is worth it. Early ice boxes didn’t feature top-quality structure, so quality will vary. It’s important to check the wooden surface closely to detect signs of deterioration, such as visible cracks, chips, scratches, and warps. All of these add to the originality of the ice box. Reproductions are common, and many get sold as antiques.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "In the Good Ole Summertime" in the 2024 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Carrying on a 150-Year-Old Pottery Tradition

Catawba Valley swirlware vase

QUESTION: Last Fall, I discovered several pieces of pottery with a swirl design at a local antiques show. The dealer called it Catawba Pottery but couldn’t tell me much more than it had been made somewhere in Appalachia. What can you tell me about this pottery? And where did it originate?

ANSWER: Catawba Valley Pottery describes an alkaline glazed stoneware made in the Catawba River Valley of Western North Carolina from the early 19th century to the present day.

Early Catawba pottery jar

Before modern conveniences such as electricity, plastic and refrigeration, pottery jugs. jars and crocks stored a family's perishables. A springhouse or pantry were the equivalent of the Frigidaire. Local potters were essential. When refrigeration and inexpensive glass came to the South between 1900 and 1930, the use of pottery to store food declined. However, a few potters in North Carolina's Catawba and Lincoln counties began making pottery for tourists attracted to the small stoneware pots with their distinctive alkaline glaze. The smarter potters kept their traditional pottery-making ways and shapes, but added customer-friendly swirl pitchers, miniatures, exotic vases, umbrella stands and, in a burst of creative marketing, face jugs.

Beginning with river-dug clay, potters turned milled clay on a foot-powered wheel, glazed the green-ware with a slurry of wood ashes, powdered glass, clay and water, and then fired it in a pine fueled ground hog kiln nestled against a hillside. This has been an unbroken 150-year-old tradition.



Stoneware, hard but not as brittle as earthenware, is durable, vitreous, easy to clean and non-toxic. Its strength made it ideal for the 5- to 20-gallon food storage jars needed by 19th-century farmers.

Catawba Valley potters used alkaline glazes on their wares

Catawba Valley potters used alkaline glazes in shades of brown or green instead of the commonly used salt glaze. Potters from Edgefield, South Carolina, originally brought alkaline glazes to the Catawba Valley. These potters made alkaline glazes by combining hardwood ash or crushed glass with clay and water. Catawba potters had an abundance of wood ash from burning their kilns but didn’t have plentiful salt deposits in their region.

The Catawba potters initially fired their alkaline glazed wares in what were known as "groundhog kilns." These kilns were a unique southern U.S. variation of climbing kilns built into hillsides. Semi-subterranean in construction, the groundhog kiln featured a door leading into a long, low passage of brick or rock construction, with a stack or chimney poking out of the ground up hill. Potters loaded pieces in the low passageway or "ware-bed" and built a fire in a sunken firebox, located just inside the door. The design allowed the stack to draw heated air, flames and ash through the pottery grouped inside and created the draft needed to generate the intense heat required to create stoneware. This type of firing or "burning " worked particularly well with large pieces of pottery. Contemporary Catawba Valley potters still use variations of these kilns, usually referred to as "tunnel kilns."

Pre-Civil War bulbous jug

Before the Civil War, jars from the area were bulbous with a flared top, gradual widening body, fat waist, and narrow base. After the war, jars maintained the same overall shape, but got bigger and fatter. By the 1930s, influenced by Ohio pottery jars, they became straight-walled, open top cylinders.

Jugs held all kinds of liquids from water to whiskey. During the 1920s and 1930s, Catawba potters added faces to these jugs, easily identified by their strap handle, pulled in shoulder and narrow spout. Catawba Valley potter Harvey Reinhardt was one of the first to produce this grotesque, but extremely popular form. However, potters made few face jugs until Burlon Craig, who produced thousands between the late 1940s and the present day.

Early Catawba Valley potters also made swirlware. Made by layering light and dark clays, they created a swirl pattern by moving diagonally up and around the body of a jug, jar, pitcher, birdhouse, vase, or dozens of other forms.

Burlon Craig face jug

Among the 150 to 200 potters scattered throughout the area between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a dozen individuals and two families stand out. Neighbors Daniel Seagle and Sylvanus Hartsoe were two of the most prolific potters with signed pieces surfacing at area auctions and antique shops. The meticulous work of Samuel Propst, called 'the best turner of all" by Burlon Craig, is less frequently seen. Enoch and Harvey Reinhardt were business partners between 1932 and 1936. Many of their larger pieces, produced by Enoch, and small tourist items, Harvey's specialty, have the stamp "Reinhardt Bros,/Vale, N.C." The Propsts and Reinhardts began making blurred, mottled edged swirlware in about 1930.

Two area families also produced several generations of potters. The Ritchie family, the largest, began making pottery with Moses and ended their work, 12 potters later, at the death of Luther in 1940. Producing 10 noted potters, the Hilton family established a half dozen potteries in and around the valley. By the 1920s, they dallied in decorated dinnerware and figurines for the tourist trade which locals called "fancyware." The Hilton family pottery-making business ended in 1939 or 1940. Crisscrossing nearly all of the prominent families as an apprentice, neighbor or co-worker, is Burlon Craig. It was he who kept traditional 19th-century pottery-making alive and continuous.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about  world's fairs in the 2020 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Beauty Is in the Eyes of the Beholder

QUESTION: Recently, I purchased a pressed glass plate that seems to be painted red and gold on one side. The paint is in pretty good condition, although some of it has flaked off. Did someone purposely paint this plate. I don’t want to scrape off the remaining paint until I know for sure. What can you tell me about this plate? And was the paint applied at the time of its manufacture?

ANSWER: As the old saying goes, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” You bought the plate because you liked it, but the paint on it does make it look like someone was doing a bit of their own decorating. Fortunately for you, you asked about it before scraping away the paint. Your plate is what’s known as “Goofus” Glass. Sounds goofy, doesn’t it. In fact, some people call it tacky, some call it ordinary, and, yes, some call it beautiful.

Manufacturers didn’t originally call it "Goofus" glass. They had no designation of Goofus glass in their  salesmen's catalogs. They didn’t even recognize it as a specific classification of glass. Goofus glass, at its inception, was just a variety of pressed glass.

The term "Goofus" refers more to the use of unfired “cold” painted decoration to a piece of pressed glass, rather than to the glass itself. Many people believe the first users of Goofus noticed how easily the painted decoration on this glass wore away and felt that it was "goofy" or that someone had tried to "goof us."

Pressed, or pattern glass was, by the end of the 19th century, a substitute cut glass by the middle class. So the demand for pressed glass rose tremendously. To keep up with the demand, a number of new factories appeared, mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Indiana due to the availability of natural gas to fire their furnaces. The most prominent of these was the Northwood Glass Company, founded in 1887 in Martin's Ferry, Ohio.

One of Northwood’s original owners, Harry Northwood, later founded his own company, H. Northwood and Company in Wheeling, West Virginia in 1901. Within five years, his company had developed a reputation as America's finest glassware manufacturer.

Always innovative, Harry Northwood was probably the first to make what has come to be known as Goofus glass and, a few years later in 1908, Carnival glass.

Other companies, such as The Imperial Glass Co. of Bellaire, Ohio, focused immediately on Goofus glass. Soon others joined them, including the Crescent Glass Co. of Wellsburg, West Virginia, Lancaster Glass Company in Lancaster, Ohio, Westmoreland Glass of Grapeville, Pennsylvania, Dugan Glass Company. of Indiana, Pennsylvania,; McKee Glass Company of Jeannette, Pennsylvania, and Indiana Glass Company of Dunkirk, Indiana, which produced more Goofus glass than any other manufacturer.

Somewhere along the line, the idea to paint pressed glassware with bright colors— usually red, but sometimes green, pink, brown, orange, silver, and always some gold—gained popularity with the buying public, who scooped it up in large quantities. This popularity glass peaked between 1908 and 1918.

Manufacturers marketed Goofus glass with names evoking faraway exotic places and   wealth. Some of these included Egyptian Intaglio, Egyptian Art, Khedive (meaning "viceroys of Egypt"), Golden Oriental, Artistic Decorated, and Intaglio Art.

Because it was mass-produced and relatively cheap, retail shop owners bought it to give as a premium for buying their goods. Goofus glass was given away by every sort of business—furniture stores, car dealers, even at WW1 Bond drives. A person could buy a house and get a complete set of dishes. Or buy a new suit and get an intaglio fruit bowl. Or buy an engagement ring and get a vase or a set of dishes. Fair owners even awarded it as prizes for winning games. It was the first Carnival glass, preceding the iridized glass known as Carnival glass today.

Glass companies produced plates, bowls, vases, oil lamps, dresser sets, salt and pepper shakers and candle holders. Many of the Goofus patterns feature flowers and fruit, especially grapes, among other motifs, raised out of the surrounding glass as seen in vases, powder boxes and lamps. The pattern could also be pressed into the glass from beneath the surface providing an intaglio effect as found in Goofus plates, baskets and candy dishes.

Because of the extensive use of red, green, and gold paint, Goofus glass became known as “Mexican ware” because the colors reminded buyers of the colors in the Mexican flag.

Workers decorated the glass in one of two ways: They either covered one side or the other of the piece completely with paint, known as “All Over Decoration” or “AOD,” or they painted just the distinguishing pattern on the glass, leaving the remainder of the glass  untouched, known as "Pattern Decorated" or "PD." The more frequently seen surface textures are various "basket weave,” "fish net," and "stippled."  

By the beginning of the Great Depression, Goofus glass production had come to an end.

It’s difficult to find a piece of Goofus glass in perfect condition whether the paint was applied to the outside or the inside of a piece. The worn paint became so unsightly it was washed away by the original or subsequent owners.

Collectors pay more to own pieces made for special occasions or to commemorate a World’s Fair or another event than other nondescript pieces. They also look for complete sets such as a large berry bowl with matching smaller bowls. Goofus collectors seek out rare oil lamps complete with glass shade and matching base. Of course, Goofus glass in all shapes and forms in great condition with very little paint wear will bring a much better price than a piece with considerable paint loss.