Bailey-Walker China: Blue and White Ironstone
Sometimes I look through a stack of plates with amazement. Really? Seventy-five years old? These plates are really that old? How in the world did they produce millions of plates, literally in the case of Bailey-Walker China Company and at the end of the day, have a quality product. As one writer has put it, the plates are “bullet proof.” I believe it might have something to do with the fact…
Ohio River Pottery: Pope-Gosser China
In the early twentieth century, Mr. Wells the president of Homer Laughlin China Company appeared before a Congressional Committee on tariffs to plead the case of American Potteries. He argued that foreign wares, particularly German and Japanese imports, were given an unfair advantage in the current laws governing tariffs. One of the committee members questioned whether or not quality china was…
Clay has a life of its own. There are many things it will not do and cannot be made to do. It insists on respect. It records not only the impression we make on it by hand or machine but also something of the saga of our life on this earth.
“Anywhere you dig in Sebring you hit pottery shards. In some places they sit in parking lots or driveways, just
waiting to tell us their history.”
