Vintage Homer Laughlin Dinnerware

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Founded in 1873 on the banks of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio, the Homer Laughlin China Company takes its name from one of the two brothers (the other answered to Shakespeare) who established the firm. First called The Ohio Valley...
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Founded in 1873 on the banks of the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio, the Homer Laughlin China Company takes its name from one of the two brothers (the other answered to Shakespeare) who established the firm. First called The Ohio Valley Pottery in 1874 then Laughlin Bros. Pottery shortly thereafter, the company's name was simplified to just Homer Laughlin in 1877 when Homer bought out Shakespeare. By 1897, when Homer Laughlin sold his business to his bookkeeper and a few others, his name was deemed important enough to the company's future that the new owners felt no need to change it. For the potteries of post-Civil War America, it was not a foregone conclusion that they'd ever be able to compete with the fine porcelain and sturdy stoneware imported from England. Indeed, some potteries disguised the American origins of their products by stamping the bottoms of their cups, saucers, plates, and bowls with a simplified British coat of arms that included a royal lion. Eventually, as the quality of American ceramics improved, these lions were replaced by American eagles. Homer Laughlin put an eagle on the base of his wares, too, except he depicted his eagle attacking a supine lion, an emphatic statement of what Laughlin thought of his British competitors. Before long, East Liverpool was known as "Ceramic City" and the "Staffordshire of America," thanks largely to the rapid growth of Homer Laughlin's company. From the beginning, Homer Laughlin supplied fine china to the best hotels and restaurants in the country, as well as to railroads. After it expanded across the river to the West Virginia panhandle town of Newell in the first years of the 20th century, Homer Laughlin secured contracts to create dinnerware for the US Navy, whose officers ate off of Homer Laughlin china during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the war in Vietnam. For the most part, the design sensibility at Homer Laughlin throughout its first half century was safe and...
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