I hope you won’t mind visiting one of my favorite tablescapes. You see, I’ve been scrambling getting our house and garden ready for summer and somehow just not gotten new tables set to show you. (Besides, it’s been beastly hot and I melt when the weather warms up.)
This is Princess pink depression glass, all arrayed with scrolls and swags and big center medallions. I love the butter dish. You can imagine the first owner taking such good care of this – it would have been her pride and joy.
Glass companies were able to make this glass so inexpensively that movie theaters or food companies gave depression glass away as premiums. Thrifty housewives could pick up pieces when they did their grocery shopping and they could send away for certain pieces. Most often butter dishes were not free; you had to send coupons in or pay for shipping. During the depression people had so little cash, it was hard for families to come up with the quarter or so for a butter dish. As a result, Hocking didn’t sell many and we don’t see many today.
I wonder how long the original owner had to save before she could splurge a bit on such a pretty extra. When you hold depression glass it makes you remember the original owner. How did they live? Who were they? They had the same worries we do – about children, about finances, about the future. Somehow it is easier to visualize people when you hold something they held and treasured.
Every depression pattern has pieces that seem expensive compared to the others in that pattern. For example, the Princess square oatmeal bowl (we’d call it a cereal bowl today) is uncommon as are the butter dish and tumblers. Of course tumblers are pricey in every pattern!
My guess is the oatmeal bowls and butter dish were pieces you had to buy and people broke their tumblers. Even with the relative scarcity, Princess remains reasonably priced. Maybe the original butter dish owner got everything else for free and felt good about finishing her set.
Princess pink depression glass is pretty and interesting with the square shapes. Hocking Glass made two other pink depression glass patterns, Mayfair Open Rose and Miss America, that have square shapes and it’s fun to combine them. (Hey, wait a minute – that sounds like a neat tablescape!) Princess and Mayfair both have square plates, square bowls. Miss America went for the semi-square look with round bowls and plates but square footed tumblers, creamers and sugars.
The depression hit after the Art Deco movement peaked for style leaders. For the average struggling family Art Deco would still have been fresh and new, and Princess square shapes and pretty colors would have been stylish and special.
I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane! Thank you for visiting.
My thanks to Susan from Between Naps on the Porch for hosting this fun event.