Shaping the Modern American Lifestyle

 

QUESTION: For the last several years I’ve begun to purchase various pieces of Mid-Century Modern furniture and accessories. While doing so, the name Russel Wright has come up frequently. I understand he was one of the more influential industrial designers of the 20th century. I’d like to learn more about him and his designs, so that I can be on the lookout for them as I browse thrift shops and used furniture stores. What can you tell me about Wright and his designs?

ANSWER: Russel Wright was indeed a master of modern design. He created dinnerware, glasses, spun aluminum, wooden tableware, stainless steel flatware, textiles, and furniture, giving a sense of style to the modern American home. Wright was one of the premier industrial designers of the modern era.

He first began to work in silver and chrome, creating small decorative circus animals for gift shops. His later work in chrome came after he signed a contract to design for Chase Brass & Copper, which he did from 1935 to 1946. Wright's designs for Chase are hot marked with his name.

Wright’s early gift items were expensive, and being in the midst of the Great Depression, he found it necessary to develop items that were more affordable. So he instead turned to spun aluminum, actually manufacturing items in the basement of he and his wife’s home.  He created around a 100 items, including stove-to-table items, a concept which doesn’t work well in aluminum but which was later expressed in other materials. Wright combined aluminum with wood, rattan, or cork, enabling the resulting pieces to be combined in a variety of ways.

From aluminum Wright moved on in 1935 to create the Oceanic line of woodenware for Elise Wood Working Company. For these designs, he used naturalistic the forms of leaves, snail spirals, starfish, and water ripples. Even though they were all machine made, these products had a handmade look and feel.

Wright's first furniture designs, for Heywood-Wakefield in 1934, made use of curved veneers and looked more Art Deco than his later furniture. Unfortunately, these pieces didn’t sell well and weren’t durable enough to use constantly. But they showed Wright's early interest in open stock pieces that could be used in a variety of ways.

The breakthrough in furniture design for Wright came with his introduction of American Modern, a line manufactured in American rock maple by Conant Ball, which sold the pieces in both dark and "blonde" finishes. Wright’s wife, Mary, coined the name "American Modern," which was later used for other products for the home. Macy's was so enthusiastic about the furniture line that they constructed a nine-room house in their New York store to display the furniture in room settings.

Wright also worked with the Old Hickory Furniture Company in Martinsville, Indiana on unique rustic furniture featuring his modern stylings. The Old Hickory line first appeared in 1942 and some of the designs stayed popular through the 1950s.

In 1939, Wright introduced a colorful line of American Modern china, the most widely sold American ceramic dinnerware in the country’s history, made by Steubenville Pottery, of Steubenville, Ohio. But American Modem china was low-tired, thus subject to chipping and crazing. After World War II, Wright introduced Iroquois Casual China, made with a high-fired glaze, suitable for dishwasher use, that came with a three-year guarantee. 

He followed his successful china line with glasses, flatware and textiles. This was the beginning of Wright’s American lifestyle, as he offered consumers a way to create a comfortable home with a unified look as they put it together, piece by piece. American Modern china, in production from 1939 until 1959, was the country’s all-time biggest selling line of dishes.

In addition to ceramic dinnerware, Wright also designed several popular lines of Melmac melamine resin plastic dinnerware for the home and did early research on plastic Melmac dinnerware for restaurant use. Beginning in 1953, Northern Plastic Company of Boston began production of his first Melmac line of plastic dinnerware for the home, called "Residential."  

As with his ceramic dinnerware, Wright began designing his Melmac only in solid colors, but by the end of the 1950s created several patterns ornamented with decoration, usually depicting plant forms.

Wright's approach to design came from the belief that the dining table was the center of the home. Working outward from there, he designed tableware to larger furniture, architecture to landscaping, all fostering an easy, informal lifestyle. It was through his popular and widely distributed housewares and furnishings that he influenced the way many Americans lived and organized their homes in the mid-20th century.

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 "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 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.

Mysterious Mauchline Ware

 

QUESTION: As I browse the booths of antique shows in my area, I’ve come upon small ochre-colored wooden boxes in various shapes with a black printed image of a historical landmark, most of which seem to be from America. The prices of these little boxes are through the roof. What are these items, and why are they so pricey?

ANSWER: What you’ve been seeing is known as Mauchline (pronounced Moch’lin) Ware, a form of souvenir ware made by the Smith family of Mauchline, Ayrshire, now Strathclyde, Scotland, and favored by affluent Victorians traveling abroad.

Adorned with transfer ware scenes of landmarks, this Scottish wooden ware dates from about 1880 to 1900. Though the Smiths sold it throughout the United Kingdom, they also exported to North America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and elsewhere.

Mauchline, located 11 miles inland from the Scottish coastal resort of Ayr, was the center of the Mauchline Ware industry, which at its peak in the 1860s, employed over 400 people in the manufacture of small, but beautifully made and invariably useful wooden souvenirs and gift ware. Because of the contribution its originators, W. & A. Smith of Mauchline, the majority of souvenirs produced in southwest Scotland from the early 19th-century to the 1930s has come to be commonly known as "Mauchline Ware."

Mauchline Ware developed partly by accident and partly through necessity. Towards the end of the 18th century in the town of Alyth, Perthshire (now Tayside), a man named John Sandy invented the "hidden hinge" snuff box. His invention eventually spread to at least 50 other Scottish snuff box manufacturers in the early 1820s, most of them in Ayrshire, including William and Andrew Smith of Mauchline. 

With so many manufacturers, snuff box production continued at an all-time high, but the habit of taking snuff was on its way out. Although they made mostly snuff boxes, manufacturers like W.& A. Smith also produced other items, from postage stamp boxes to tea trays, all out of wood. The first of the new products were tea caddies utilizing the hidden hinge. In fact, they were so highly prized that when a female employee got married, the Smith’s Box Works gave her one of their tea caddies as a present.

Over the next century, the Smiths of Mauchline and their competitors produced tens of thousands of articles in hundreds of styles and in several different finishes. They generally used sycamore wood, which has a very close grain and a pleasing color. The precise date of the first transfer wares isn’t known, but companies manufactured them from the early 1850s until 1933.

Woodworkers created more items with transfer decoration than any other finish. These were true souvenir wares, since they decorated each piece with a view associated with the place of purchase.

Skilled craftsman applied transfers to the finished articles prior to coating them with several layers of slow drying copal varnish. This process took from 6 to 12 weeks to complete, although it seems that they must of developed an accelerated means of varnishing to cope with the sheer scale of production. However, this lengthy and careful process of manufacture accounted for the extreme durability of these products, many of which have survived in near mint condition.

As with earlier hand-decorated snuff boxes, manufacturers used sycamore wood, known as "plane" in Scotland, its pale color making an excellent background for the black transfers. While the majority of Mauchline Ware items were small, thus warranting only a single transfer, it was by no means unusual for craftsmen to apply six or more transfers to some of the larger pieces. Where they applied more than one transfer, the Smiths related views to one another, either by subject or geography.

Views of Scotland dominated the transfer ware. "Burnsian" views, by far, formed the largest single grouping and views associated with Sir Walter Scott probably the second. In addition to virtually every town and village, producers immortalized a great number of beauty spots, country houses, churches, schools, ruins and even cottage hospitals in transfer ware. Other views included seaside resorts and the inland spa towns of Malvern, Cheltenham, Chester, Bath and Harrogate, which became increasingly accessible to a growing number of people as a result of the rapidly expanding rail network. The Isle of Wight was particularly popular, probably due to Victoria's love of the place. And the popular south and east coast resorts--Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, Margate and Scarborough--saw their share.

From the 1830s on, makers produced a steadily decreasing number of snuff boxes while producing an increasing array of needlework, stationery, domestic and cosmetic items as well as articles for personal decoration and amusement. In addition, companies created an incredible range of boxes in every conceivable size and shape and for limitless purposes.

A great many cotton, thread and ribbon manufacturers—J & P Coates, Chadwicks, Clarks Glenfield, Kerr and Medlock—purchased Mauchline Ware containers for their products, their names clearly yet discreetly displayed either inside the lid or on the base. Thus, manufacturers transformed rather mundane accessories into attractive gifts.

Producers also turned out novelty inkwells, pens, pencils, pencil boxes and letter openers, as well as many designs of bookmarks including a patented combined bookmark and paper cutter.

And it’s because of Mauchline Ware’s uniqueness that prices for it have risen to such high levels.

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 "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 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.

The Teapot King

 

Aladdin Teapot

QUESTION: My mother was an avid tea drinker. When she was a young woman, she began buying old teapots at flea markets and yard sales. When I grew up and left to go on my own, I started giving her a teapot for her birthday. Over time, she amassed a collection of some 50 teapots. She passed away recently, and her collection has passed on to me. I chose the teapots I bought for her because of their unusual shapes, but I noticed that a good many of them seem to be marked for the Hall China Company. I’d like to continue adding to this collection. Why would so many have been made by Hall China? And as collectibles, are these teapots of any value?

ANSWER: Indeed, the Hall China Company is the king of teapots. Lots of people probably have one and don’t know it.

Gold Decorated Los Angeles Teapot

Albany Teapot

Robert Hall founded the Hall China Company after the dissolution of East Liverpool Potteries of East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1903. Taggert Hall, Robert’s son, became president following his father’s unexpected death in 1904. The company initially made jugs, toilet sets, and utilitarian whiteware. Robert T. Hall’s major contribution to the firm’s growth was the development of an economical, single-fire process for lead-free glazed wares introduced in 1911.

Robert Hall died just a year after founding his company. One of his eight children, Robert Taggart Hall, took it over and immediately began developments to introduce the single-fire process, which had first been used centuries earlier by Chinese potters during the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1644. His aim was to change from the two-firing manufacturing method, using first a biscuit firing and then the glaze firing. With the help of staff chemists and ceramic engineers, Hall experimented from 1904 until 1911, when the process was successful. The new process fused together the white body, color and glaze when it was fired at a temperature of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pear Teapot

The new glazes allowed the creation of brilliant colors never before seen on American china: 47 colors developed for the new process, which allowed for rapid expansion of the company and its product selections at the onset of World War I. After tepid sales of its new housewares lines in the 1910s, the company tried designing and selling decorated teapots. The teapot business was so successful that the company decided to expand it from the original three designs to a plethora of new shapes and colors. In the 1940s the teapot business began to dwindle. By the 1960s, probably due to the increased preference for coffee by the public, teapot sales had fallen to insignificance.

In the mid-1920s, Hall China began producing a range of ware exclusively for the Jewel Tea Company. Jewel started using Hall teapots as premiums, and then expanded the promotion to include its own line of distinctive dinnerware and kitchenware.

Globe Teapot

Hall’s teapots were durable, non-porous, and unlike other types of china, didn’t craze.  The Hall palette of colors included no fewer than 47 different variations over the years.  The non-crazing process used to manufacture its pieces were made to emulate beautiful wares made in China during the Ming Dynasty, although the shapes and decor didn’t generally show any Asian influence. 

Hall also produced novelty teapots shaped like cars, footballs, and doughnuts that remain popular with collectors although they're often difficult to find today. These include the popular Nautilus and Aladdin teapots.

Nautilus Teapot

A Selection of Hall Teapots
Hall produced over 160 different shapes and color combinations of teapots. The first, the Gold Decorated Teapot line, also known as the Los Angeles teapot, was extremely popular.

Loc Angeles Teapot

The second, the Boston teapot, which also began production in 1916, came in two styles, the Boston Knob, included here, and the Boston Sunken Lid. Both came in seven sizes from one cup to seven or eight cup. The Boston is one of Hall China Company’s earliest and most enduring styles. In 1916, the McCormack Tea Company purchased the Boston in the seven cup green. The seven cup green and brown Boston teapots were the first ones carried by the Jewel Tea Company in 1924.

Boston Teapots

Philadelphia Teapot

Another teapot Hall introduced in 1916 was the New York teapot and was one of Hall’s longest running styles, available from 1916 through 1989. It was originally and continually produced in nine different sizes for the Hall hotel ware line but was also added to the Gold Decorated line in 1920.  

The Philadelphia  teapot, produced during the 1920s, came in seven different sizes, ten, seven, six, five, four, three and one and a half cups. Later in that same decade, Hall introduced the Hollywood teapot which came in four, five, six and eight cup sizes.

Tea-for-Two Teapots

From 1930 to 1996, Hall produced the Tea-for-Two, a combination teapot and a hot water pot, It’s distinguished from the Twin-Tea set by the sloped shape of the body, It can also be found as a Tea for Four set. 

Musical Teapot

From the late 1930s to the 1940s, Hall produced one of two Globe shaped teapots. The No-Drip is a Globe shape teapot with a different spout and decoration. The Globe teapot, introduced in the late 1930s, was usually found with the gold decoration pictured. By 1942 it was available in black, blue, brown, cadet, canary, delphinium, Dresden, emerald, green, green luster, ivory, marine, maroon, orchid, rose, turquoise and yellow. 

Hall’s Musical teapot, made in the 1930s, wasn’t a success. The music box, which played “Tea for Two,” sat under the teapot in a “well,” held in place with a spring clip. Often, users would wash the teapot without removing the musical box, causing damage to the mechanism. 

In 1937, Hall added the Streamline to the Gold Decorated teapot line. It featured the standard gold decoration around the top, edge, and spout found on other teapots in the line.

Streamline Teapot

Doughnut Teapot

The Automobile was one of the Hall China Company’s Novelty teapots introduced in 1938. Although it has a very unusual shape it was very popular. Introduced in 1938, the Basket was another Novelty teapot that included the Doughnut, the Birdcage, the Football, and the Basketball. In 1982, Hall was commissioned to make a caricature teapot of newly elected President Ronald Reagan. After a partial delivery the customer defaulted on the remaining order and subsequently the teapots were sold at the local Hall Closet store.  

Automobile Teapot

Rhythm Teapot

Hall China produced some of its most beautifully designed teapots in the 1930s, many of which featured Art Deco styling. Introduced in 1938 in the 8-cup size with the 6-cup introduced the following year, the Airflow was colored marine in its standard design. It was perfectly balanced and was as simple to lift as a purse, easy to pour, plus the lid wouldn’t fall off.

Hall introduced the Rhythm teapot in 1939. Originally introduced as a gold decorated teapot with gold dots on the upper two drapes, it was later a part of the Hall American line and came in over 100 different colors. That same year, Hall produced a special souvenir teapot for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

1939 New York World's Fair Teapot

Twinspout Teapot

Designer Oscar Ottoson invented the Twinspout teapot for which he received a patent in 1938. Hall China produced it for the Twinspout Pottery Company of New York.  When a user removed the lid, there were two openings, the larger for the tea and the smaller for the hot water. 

Produced from 1939 to 1963, the Aladdin teapot was one of Hall’s most popular shapes. It came with either a round or an oval opening, both with and without infusers, and in narrow and wide bodies.

Sani-Gold Teapot

During the 1940s, Hall came out with the Sani-Gold teapot. It first appeared in the 1941 Hall China Special Catalog #4. The firm made it in three and six cup sizes, with grid in the spout  to catch the tea leaves which was also shortened for easy cleaning.. The style, often referred to as “pert” was also easier to store. 

Introduced in 1940, the Hook Cover teapot, produced only in the six cup size, had a lid that wouldn’t fall off when pouring. The body has a hook over which the lid fits, thus the name.

Hook Cover Teapot

Windshield Teapot

The Windshield teapot, introduced in 1941, had a collar similar to the one worn by Queen Elizabeth I of England.

From the mid 1950s through the 1960s, Hall produced the Parade teapot as one of its Gold Decorated teapots.. It had a hook cover lid and a non-slip handle.

Hall produced the E-Style Cameo Rose teapot, designed by J. Palin Thorley, another of Hall’s top designers, exclusively for the Jewel Tea Company from the 1950s to the 1970s. Another of its noted designers was Donald Schreckengost who designed the Pear teapot, first introduced in 1970.

E-Style Cameo Rose Teapot

Airflow Teapot

Hall China produced so many teapots during its existence that it’s nearly impossible for a collector to collect them all. 

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 "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 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.

Buckets of Fun at the Seashore

 

QUESTION: As I was browsing a local antique mall, I noticed an old tin sand pail sitting on a shelf along with a variety of other old toys. Seeing it brought back a flood of memories of vacations at the seashore with my family. Every summer, my father would pack up the car for our week at the New Jersey shore. Two items I made my father pack were my tin sand pail and shovel—indispensable for building sand castles. I never thought of sand pails as collectibles and seeing one on a shelf with other old toys was a surprise. What can you tell me about how these little pails got their start?

ANSWER: Sand pails appeal to both boys and girls around the world. Even those living  from the seashore played with their pail and shovel in a sandbox at school or at home in the backyard or by a lakeside. Sand pails weren’t expensive; costing just a few cents, a small price to pay to set a child's imagination off on an adventure. 

Originally, craftsmen made sand pails of wood, decorated with either a simple designs or lettering hand-painted or stenciled around them to appeal to children. After about 1840 tinsmiths started to use tin to make toys. Initially, they made pails from 12 by 14-inch sheets of tin plate imported from Wales. The small size of the sheets restricted the size of these early pails to about 4 ½  inches in diameter. As tin plate technology developed, larger, thinner sheets became available and tin plate started to be produced in the U.S. 

The designs on the earliest tin sand pails were simple, following the pattern of the earlier wooden pails with few bands of color or some letters applied free hand or stenciled over a japanned finish. Japanning consisted of several layers of paint followed by a coat of lacquer. As the market grew the decoration became more complex, a process imported from France in which tinsmiths employed a mixture of varnish and paint burned on in alcohol, then baked to produce a thin translucence to the finish.

They also used embossing on other pails to accentuate the design or lettering. It usually involved a stamping or rolling process so that parts of the surface were raised up while the pail was still in sheet form. It was then very easy to enhance the raised portions with a second color, using a paint pad or roller. 

A major technological advance came in the late 1880s with developments in lithography allowing this printing process to be applied to thin tin sheets. This innovative process printed with a detail that had previously only been possible on paper. This transformed the making of toys, as well as tin food cans and tin advertising signs. It was then possible to use multiple colors and produce fine detailing and a smooth, relatively hard wearing, durable finish. A lithographic press printed the designs and colors on flat sheets of metal from which toys could be formed using tools and dies.

By the turn of the 20th century a family visit to the seashore had become very popular.  America was on the move on weekends and took annual vacations in places like Coney Island, Atlantic City, Asbury Park, or Cape Cod.

Additionally, developments in the technology of printing processes in the 1930s enhanced the colors and details possible on tin pails, and several of the toy manufacturers employed famous illustrators to design the graphics.

The 1930s and 1940s with the popularity of radio and the movies created new heroes, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Snow White along with the Seven Dwarfs all appeared on pails, spades, sprinkling cans and water pumps. The traveling circus was extremely popular. Exotic animals performing amazing acts along with daring performers and clowns with their crazy antics all have their place on beach pails.

As the years passed, cowboys chasing Indians across the range and other Western themes became popular from the influence of television programming. Then the atomic age with space travel captured the imagination and took its place on sand pails.

Tin sand pails and shovels offered a designer a large surface on which to tell a story. Children could identify with the events depicted on pails by The Ohio Art Company of Bryan, Ohio, Kirchoff Patent Company of Newark, New Jersey, T. Cohn Co. of Brooklyn, New York, or U.S. Metal Toy Manufacturing Company of New York. Toddlers could recite favorite nursery rhymes as they looked at the four sides of a beautifully illustrated square sand pail by Julius Chein and Company of New Jersey, or delight in the exploits of Disney characters.

Children delighted in swashbuckling heroes and pirates and acted out their own stories, their pails becoming little treasure chests to transport shells from the water's edge to their ever growing sand piles. 

People are often surprised at the higher prices collectors pay for Victorian and early 20th-century sand pails. This is particularly true of examples showing early airplanes, dirigibles, steamships, Old Glory, the American Eagle, early teddy bears, early Disney characters. 

Condition is everything when collecting tin sand pails, as with other tin-lithographed toys. The design may be worth $500 or $5 the only variable with be condition. Rust, dents, missing parts and major scratches have a serious impact on value.

In establishing an antique or vintage sand pail’s value, subject matter of the illustration on it is also extremely important. Size has no real effect on value. Some collectors like large pails to display on shelves or hang from ceilings, while others prefer the mid-size ones to exhibit in small cases. Many more collect all sizes and include the minipails that were first candy containers, grouping them eclectically.

As with any toys, the best examples of tin sand pails, in mint or excellent condition l always sell for the highest prices. Considering what children did with their sand pails, it’s a wonder any survived at all.

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 "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 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.