By LISA MICCO
New Castle News
With the flick of a file, an imperfection disappeared.
That action, repeated continuously over the course of eight hours, ensured that Shenango China’s products were the finest.
“Some people’s jobs were to get a little file and pick away at those little wee pieces of porcelain that didn’t just fit into the plate,” said Gene DeCaprio, who worked part time during his high school years at the world-renowned pottery on New Castle’s West Side.
Now, the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts is exercising that same diligence in an effort to preserve and catalog the remnants of the defunct Sampson Street business. The once-thriving plant closed its doors in 1992 after changing hands numerous times throughout its nine decades of operation.
Representatives of the Hoyt and the city of New Castle toured the shuttered facility this spring, finding not only boxes of never-shipped china, but also drawer upon drawer of the decals once used to decorate cups, plates and dishes.
These historical gems, though, were discovered amid a maze of moss-covered floors and rotting timbers. Before they suffer the same fate as the cavernous building, Kimberly Koller-Jones, executive director of the Hoyt, hopes to rescue and archive them as a research tool for the community.
“It looks like a bunch of junk, but I look at it as, ‘What can be done with what is still there?’ ” she said.
“There’s such a strong connection to (Shenango China), reminding people of who they can be, reminding a community of not just what it was, but what it can be.”
Two years ago, Koller-Jones was approached for ideas to develop the property.
Maybe a museum. Perhaps an on-site pottery.
But like a potter’s wheel, the ideas just spun in circles. After all, the majority of the brick behemoth was in ruins, except for a portion still occupied by Resco Products Inc., a refractories company.
Then the city stepped forward with a plan to buy the 34-acre property along Grant Street for $850,000. City council approved the purchase in September 2007 from David Choi of Realties USA Inc. He had owned the property since November 1996.
The city plans to use a state grant to demolish the vacant areas of the plant for industrial development, Mayor Anthony Mastrangelo said during the tour. It would become part of the adjacent Riverview Commerce Park.
Before that happens, Koller-Jones wants to ensure that the plant’s 30,000 former employees and the work they did are not forgotten.
“I’d never been through the plant and had no idea what they had at the time,” Koller-Jones said. “I knew from rumor that there was a decal room that was still full of decals. So my thought was (the Hoyt) would establish an archive and people could research their patterns.”
She arranged for a walk-through about a year and a half ago. She was overwhelmed.
“I saw everything else — the bisqueware, the finish ware, the molds — and the wheels started turning on what else could be done with what was there as far as preserving that history,” she said. “It’s kind of disheartening to see that part of our community has fallen into disrepair, but on the other hand, the potential is so exciting with what could be done with what remains — despite the state that it’s in.”
And ever since hosting a 2000 Shenango China exhibit, she added, the Hoyt has been inundated with inqueries about various patterns and records from the plant.
“We have our collection here. I’d say while the historical society has probably the largest collection, we have the most significant in that we have all the presidential plates and artists’ plates,” she said. “It just seemed like a natural step for us to take in cooperation of what was going on down there.
“I started pursuing the decals ... it was a way of preserving that history and becoming relevant to the community.”
In order to do that, though, she had to get the Hoyt’s board of directors to share her enthusiasm. She set up a tour with city officials and Hoyt board members. It wouldn’t be easy, given the adventure would be fraught with cobwebs, collapsed roofs, rancid residue and open pits. However, the strategy worked.
“Prior to that, they couldn’t understand my excitment of what I was talking about.”
Now, they’re on board."
Up a flight of sludge-slathered steps and through abandoned work stations, the dusty drawers of the decal room house patterns once designed for customers ranging from the 21 Club in New York to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.
Racks of narrow drawers, stacked from floor to ceiling, store thousands of decals, now curled with age.
“This is from the Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia,” board member David Esposito said as he opened drawer after drawer. “Wow, this is named ‘Grandma Moses.’ Look how old and dated the design is. It’s got to be from the 1930s or ’40s.”
“This is for ABC-TV. Unbelievable,” he added.
Board member Michele Perelman discovered a floral pattern, appropriately named “Michele.”
“And look, it’s even spelled with one ‘L.’ My name is with one ‘L’ and everyone always spells it with two,” she said, sharing her find with fellow member Rose White. “There are plates here from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas ... I think if we had all of these and we can do something with them, this could be an incredible legacy.”
Both Perelman and White treasure their sets of fine china made at the pottery.
“I have a complete set of one of my mother-in-law’s that is so gorgeous,” Perelman said, adding she didn’t know the pattern name. “It was done in roses; not pink roses, but orange. It’s almost Asian-looking. Just beautiful work.”
White recalled the collection she and husband Tom bought in 1974. It’s a simple pattern, she said, with a gold band edging.
“I would only use it for special occasions because I thought, ‘Gee, I hate to have to wash all of this by hand all the time.’ I’m probably not going to use it,” White said.
But after touring the plant during one of its open houses and talking with an employee, White learned her fine china could withstand daily use.
“The fellow said they use glaze over their metal bands — that’s the key — as long as the glaze is over the metal. I could use it everyday and put it in the dishwasher, and I have,” White said. “I’ve been using it ever since, and it’s just as beautiful as it was the day I got it.”
Richard Flannery, board president, scoured the drawers looking for the Delta Tau Delta patterns that Shenango China created for his fraternity at Ohio Wesleyan College.
“We knew people here at the time, and we organized getting our china from them,” he said, pausing for a moment. “Oh look, Boston College. Just amazing.”
Decals for restaurant and hotel ware also were scattered along tables, including patterns for a Muldoon’s Irish Pub. Another set of decals, featuring both pink and blue outer rims with locomotives, were said to be used in train diner cars.
Tucked away in the drawers were decals for commemorative plates made for such events as the 1972 Orange Bowl, honoring University of Nebraska’s head coach Bob Devaney. The decal highlighted the complete 1971 season schedule and scores — and the final outcome of the Jan. 1, 1972, Orange Bowl faceoff between the No. 1 ranked Nebraska and the No. 2 seed University of Alabama: 38-6.
“A limited edition created by Edward Lawrence of which this number is” was printed on the pattern for a pottery worker to mark in a rectangular box. Copyright CCI.
For local events, Shenango China made specialty plates for the former New Model Bakery and for the grand opening of Route 60, The bright yellow and red pattern featured the outline of Lawrence and Beaver counties, joined by the new highway with “The Right Connection: Pennsylvania’s Route 60 Corridor — Expressway for Expansion” emblazoned around the rim.
DeCaprio, board member, said the pottery provided dinnerware for local families to royalty — and everyone in between.
“They serviced the entire United States Armed Forces during World War II,” recalled the Navy veteran. “We flipped plates wherever we were — even in our own cafeteria, no matter where you were. You could’ve been on a ship, you could’ve been on an Army base, you could’ve been on an Air Force base.
“We were always looking for that Indian sitting crossed-legged holding a piece of pottery. That meant home.”
Koller-Jones scurried through the old plant, artfully dodging the stagnant water-filled pits in the floor and steel pillars. As unofficial tour guide, she pointed out to the group — which also included Hoyt employee and former pottery worker Bill Chesney, city business administrator Tammi Gibson and chief financial officer Stephanie Dean — to watch their step.
Crumpled boxes labeled Industrial Ceramic Products were strewn about, some near where the old kilns once fired up. The cardboard, weakened with age, spilled out thousands of 2-inch ceramic sticks used to melt down into bisque, the unglazed ceramic ware.
Yet, these obstacles didn’t slow down Koller-Jones.
Occasionally, she’d politely call back to the stragglers to keep moving.
She was on a mission to retrieve decals designed by some of the greatest artists of the day — Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, George Braque, Stuart Leger and Andrew Wyeth. Their work was still stored in the drawers of the decal room.
“When I found the Picasso decals in the drawer, now that was exciting,” Koller-Jones said.
While many are familiar with the presidential plates made at Shenango China, its offspring — Castleton China — debuted its museum line in 1946 from the skilled hand of Eva Zeisel. The line, which opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, featured plates with designs created by such world-renowned artists as Picasso and Chagall.
“I don’t think a lot of people know that Shenango’s Castleton’s line back in the ’40s hired Eva Zeisel to design the museum ware shape,” she said, referring to the artist known as the Mother of Modern pottery with its signature curves. “And then they got the best artists of the day, Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Chagall, to design for the museum line, and then made these designs publicly accessible. Regional artist Alfred Dehn also contributed to the Shenango China legacy.
“There was an artistry to making the everyday china, but then it went even beyond that when they incorporated fine art into the design,” she added. “It’s a testament to the breath of what they were doing in that there are decals for places all over the United States, not just restaurants, yacht clubs, hotels, schools and things like that. It shows the diversity of what they were doing.”
Castleton China also created the celebrated presidential services for Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as Air Force One and other government entities. These fine collections are displayed in the J. Howard Bruce Shenango China Room in Hoyt East and throughout the period rooms of Hoyt West.
But don’t bother looking for the decals. They don’t exist.
“Particularly with the presidential plates, what wasn’t produced for the White House, the Smithsonian got to keep one example, the company got to keep one example and then everything else was destroyed, including the patterns so they couldn’t be reproduced,” Koller-Jones explained.
The Eisenhower plate with the black medallion pattern in the background was designed by Shenango employee William Craig McBurney of New Castle. A similar pattern initially caught Mamie Eisenhower’s eye, so the first lady invited McBurney to the White House to do a service.
“The first example he showed her had a white pattern, but she didn’t think it was flashy enough because they often dined by candlelight, so it was revised,” Koller-Jones said, retelling the story McBurney had related to her. “The Hoyt has the first draft that he showed her, the prototype and the finished product.”
The Johnson service, she noted, was accented with all the state flowers around the edges.
“Everyone is so familiar with the restaurantware and their imagination kind of stops there,” Koller-Jones said. “The scope of what Shenango China was doing is so much greater than what most people realize.”
Roselyn Castle is considered a ‘very collectible pattern,’ and features a vignette center illustrating the Red Lion Inn with ‘coach-and-four.’ A number of different rose varieties in bloom — not shown in this decal retrieved from the former Shenango China plant — encircle the rim. The china, made from 1940s through 1980s, may have some variation in depth of color — red to pink — because of the extended period of time in which this pattern was produced.
The decal for the Greenbrier in Sulfur Springs, W.Va., was found among the thousands left behind at the former Shenango China plant.
The decal designed for a plate commemorating the opening of Route 60 corridor, which created an expressway connecting Lawrence and Beaver counties.
As men were called to service during World War II, Shenango China’s workforce consisted of mostly women.
Hoyt director
out to save history
of Shenango China
TIMELINE OF SHENANGO CHINA
•1901: New Castle Pottery built a plant on West Grant Street; Shenango China was incorporated on Emery Street.
•Shenango China had difficulties resulting in a receiver being appointed, so they reorganized under the name Shenango Pottery Co.
•1905: New Castle Pottery closed.
•1909: Shenango Pottery’s financial problems continued, but a new group took over with James M. Smith as president. This resulted in a 9-year struggle to turn the business around.
•1912: Shenango Pottery purchased the New Castle plant and moved to that location.
•1913: The new plant was flooded before production could start after refurbishing the new location, slowing down the growth.
•James M. Smith proved to be a determined leader and businessman. The plant slowly began to flourish.
•1936 to 1958: Shenango Pottery produce American Haviland for Theodore Haviland Co. of France. The ware was marked “Haviland, New York.”
•1939: The company was commissioned by Rosenthal China of Germany to produce Rosenthal shapes and patterns under the name Castleton China. Shenango invested $25,000.
•1940: Castleton China began sales.
•1951: Shenango Pottery purchased all the stock of the Castleton China Co. from Rosenthal.
•1953: A design was commissioned for President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “first birthday” in the White House, held by the Republican Party in Hershey, Pa., as gifts to those attending.
•1954: Shenango Pottery changed its name back to Shenango China Inc.
•1955: Castleton was commissioned by first lady Mamie Eisenhower to create the formal china for the state dining room. The design was created by William Craig McBurney of New Castle, who also designed the dinner service for Eisenhower’s airplane, the Columbine.
•1959: Sobiloff Bros. had purchased all the stock from the Smith estate and other stockholders. Shenango bought Wallace China of California.
•1961: All assets of Shenango China were transfered to Shenango Ceramics, owned by the Sobiloffs.
•1964: Mayer China Co. of Beaver Falls was purchased, and Wallace China was liquidated.
•1968: A set of Castleton China was commissioned for the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration to present to the White House as a state service.
•1968: The assets of Shenango Ceramics, Castleton China and Mayer China were sold to Interpace Corp. of Parsippany, N.J., manufacturers of Franciscan earthenware and fine china on the West Coast.
•1970: Production of Castleton China stopped.
•1979: Shenango China Co. was bought by Anchor Hocking Corp. of Lancaster, Ohio. It was later bought by Syracuse China of New York.
•1988: The end was drawing near for the local company.
•1992: The plant closed its doors forever.
Source: www.restaurantwarecollectors.com
