With all the glass reference books available one might think we know everything there is to know about some patterns or makers. But we don’t. Even with catalog sheets and detailed photos or price lists or anecdotes, we can’t be sure exactly a company produced the pieces they did, or how the glass’s original owners used it.
That’s where you bring in your imagination and empathy. Here’s what I mean.
Let’s look at the manufacture side this post and then lend our imaginations to the first people who used our treasured glass next post.
When we look at colors and the years a company produced patterns in various colors we can get an idea of the fashions and how people reacted to trends. Remember, the original owners for much of our depression glass – mass produced, often given away as premiums – were families often scraping by, living pay check to pay check, or possibly without a pay check at all. So the colors people chose for their homes would reflect what was available as much as what they liked.
Often families would get a few pieces of a pattern as premiums, freebies at the theater or in boxes of soap, then they had the option to purchase more pieces. (Even today we see this marketing technique. Dave and I got a set of Blue Willow from Kroger, so many pieces each week at discount then augment with the rest of the set during the promotion.)
The first mass-produced, inexpensive depression patterns came in green (e.g., Colonial Fluted/Rope in 1928) or clear (Ring 1927), rarely other colors at first. (Elegant makers were more adventurous with color.) Pink came in about 1930 and amber later, about 1932, blue became more common with patterns like Moderntone from Hazel Atlas in 1934. Glass companies made crystal throughout the period but during the later 1930s many patterns were made in crystal or pink, and going by the quantities available today, companies marketed both. Columbia or Old Colony are good examples.
So we can guess that either companies needed to find an inexpensive way to make blue or pink or amber, or that the color fashions changed over time. For example we know that red glass was originally costly to produce before companies learned to use selenium as colorant.
Looking at the piece lists, we notice that the patterns with vast dinnerware assortments were 1930s-to around 1937, when we started seeing fewer pieces for place settings or serving pieces. Compare Hocking’s Mayfair to their later Waterford.
Mayfair from Hocking has an enormous piece list, full dinnerware set with a plethora of serving pieces, goblets, sherbets, tumblers and pitchers, lots of accessories such as a vase, cookie jar, console bowl butter dish, cake plate, decanter.
Waterford from Hocking is a great example of contracting piece lists in a pattern that apparently was successful for the company. Hocking made mostly crystal and pink Waterford from 1938 to 1944, and included basic dinnerware pieces, plates, two bowls, cup and saucer. They also made pieces beyond basic dinner use: two tumblers, goblets and pitchers, ashtray, butter dish, coaster, one serving bowl, two serving plates, a lamp. Waterford to me shows a way station on the transition from dinnerware galore to basic sets combined with a few serving and accessory pieces which we see in most of the Fire King dinnerware patterns from the 1940s-70s.
Pattern styles changed too. Very early patterns, Colonial, Colonial Fluted, Ring, Spiral, are geometric, mold etched designs such as Cherry Blossom, Madrid emerged around 1930, and geometric designs such as Windsor or Columbia came out in the later depression years.
What does this tell us about the people who made or bought the glass? We can figure the producers made what they did because families bought their products. Perhaps patterns with limited production periods did not appeal to families, or the companies had to limit their marketing and those patterns lost out, or maybe another reason. Generally we can assume manufacturers made what sold.
I like to put myself in the shoes of the glass companies once in a while. Why did they make what they did? With some patterns we have advertisements or coupon offers and can make educated guesses, while other patterns are mysteries.
It’s more fun to imagine how people used their glassware than it is to imagine why companies made it, and we’ll indulge a bit in this next week.