“It Takes More Than a Little Parsley:” The Public Marketing Strategies of the Shenango China...

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“ I T T A K E S M O R E T H A N A

L I T T L E P A R S L E Y : ” T H E

P U B L I C M A R K E T I N G

S T R A T E G I E S O F T H E

S H E N A N G O C H I N A C O M P A N YS T E P H A N I E V I N C E N T

The idea of a “Rust Belt,” an area of the United States encompassing a stretchof land from New York to Illinois marked by large amounts of industrial closure,points to a paradox common in American society for over a century. Since the latenineteenth century, the image of the factory signified growth, prosperity, and laterthe American Dream. Success came through hard work and anyone who toiledlong enough at their goals would meet with achievement. This ideal extended intobusinesses as well: small factories with proper investment, creativity, and tenacitycould someday triumph as industrial bastions of American wealth.

However, this belies the reality that many people and companies fail.1 Thecontrast between success and failure serves as a valuable lens for analyzing thehistory of businesses and communities in the United States and illustrates howthe failings in the industrial realm have an impact on the everyday lives ofits workers and surrounding communities. One example of a company thatstruggled with the paradox between the American Dream and American economicreality was the Shenango China plant in New Castle, Pennsylvania. For fortyyears, its local middle management made repeated efforts to update its product

Stephanie Vincent is a first-year doctoral student at Kent State University. The author would liketo thank Dr. Kenneth Bindas, chair of the Department and thesis advisor, as well as the membersof her committee for their guidance on the overall project.

1. According to the US government’s Small Business Administration, three out of tenbusinesses fail in their first two years, and half in the first five years (see its website,available at: http://www.sba.gov/advocacy/7495/8430, accessed 16 August 2011). And from1992 to 2009, according to a calculation based on data from US Department’s of Labor’sBureau of Labor Statistics, on average 1.6 million businesses failed annually (for thedata, see “Databases and Tools,” series IDs BDU0000000000000000120006LQ5 andBDU0000000000000000120006RQ5, US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics,available at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate, accessed 16 August 2011).

© 2011 Phi Alpha Theta

design, public imagery, plant operations, and employee relations to postpone theinevitable, its closure in 1991.

Even at the company’s very beginning in 1901, Shenango China struggled tosurvive in the face of bankruptcies and receiverships stemming from the merger oftwo porcelain plants into one facility. But through the efforts of its president,James M. Smith Sr, the plant gained its footing and by the 1930s had grown intoone of the largest commercial vitrified china producers in the world. The plantexpanded further during the 1940s, adding a fine home china line called Castle-ton, and increasing production levels to meet the needs of the United Statesmilitary during the Second World War. A segment of these war contracts forceramic land mines later caused the plant to endure a series of lawsuits andbuyouts.2 In 1950, the leading minority stockholder and Smith’s daughter, AliceHiggins, sued the plant and majority stockholders (including her brother JamesSmith Jr and cousin George B. Zahneiser), claiming that the minority stockholderswere not consulted in the landmine contract, and demanded a percentage of themanufacture.

The ensuing eight-year trial and its appeals found that Smith Jr, Zahneiser, andthe others accepted the government bid in the guise of the Shenango subsidiaryCastle Engineering without the knowledge or consent of Shenango’s minoritystockholders and pocketed profits totaling $316,603. Judges from the US ThirdCircuit Court of Appeals determined that the Shenango officials involved in thelandmine contract acted “in calculated indifference to the corporate commongood” and awarded a settlement totaling $181,603 to the minority stockholders.The settlement forced the estate of the now-deceased James Smith Jr to sell hismajority stock to finance the damages. The shares were sold to Hyman Sobiloffin 1959, marking the first time that the Smith family lost its majority stake inShenango China.3 Over the next several decades, the plant was sold multipletimes, first to the Interpace corporation in 1968, then to Anchor Hocking in 1979,and, finally, to Syracuse China in 1988. Local management frequently attemptedto avoid failure at the hands of these outside proprietors. For example, theycreated new designs and shapes for their products that were both contemporaryand affordable. The corporate leaders even stepped in to improve the machineryof the plant, such as Interpace’s $2.7 million expansion efforts in the 1970s. In

2. Shenango China Inc., History of Shenango China, New Castle, PA: Shenango China Inc.,1985, 1–4.

3. “Higgins and Barkby v. Shenango Pottery,” 279 F.2d 46 (Third Cir. App., 1960), 50–4, and“Pottery Share Sale Revealed,” New Castle News, 26 January 1960, 1.

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addition to improvements in the product and plant, Shenango worked to provideincentives for its workforce to achieve the highest quality of production andcreated imaginative promotions for its sales crew to boost orders. Managementalso paid careful attention to Shenango’s public image, especially through itsCastleton China line aimed at the general public rather than foodservice vendors.

Despite the multiple efforts to innovate, sales continued to fall as the plantchanged hands again and again. Competition from foreign ceramics companieshurt Shenango greatly, as it could not match the low prices of imported goodsfrom plants that paid workers as little as sixteen cents per day. Management alsohad to grapple with the fact that outside owners such as Anchor Hocking did notfully understand how to run a china plant and ended up lumping Shenango intofoodservice divisions with no autonomy to make their own business decisions.Quality and worker morale fell as corporate management demanded increasinglyhigh product yield. The increased rates brought with them a steep decline inquality and more customer returns while local middle management struggled tofigure out how to improve morale in a tumultuous situation.4 Anchor Hockingitself did not improve its financial situation enough to stave off a takeover of stockby Newell Rubbermaid, who, in turn, offered the plant for sale again in 1987. Thefinal purchase of the plant came in 1988 by the Syracuse China company, Shenan-go’s largest rival in the commercial china industry.5 From the onset, Syracusenever treated the plant or workers well, leading to much speculation as to whethertheir true motive had been to run a former competitor out of business. The rumorsand fears of the employees and city were realized in February 1991 when Syracuseannounced the permanent shutdown of the plant.6 The new ownership’s treatmentof Shenango and its workers led to great resentment in the New Castle area as itlost one of its largest employers.

Looking at the efforts of Shenango China to survive in the tumultuous worldof twentieth-century industry, their ultimate failure, and the reaction of workersand residents provides a unique opportunity to examine the paradox of theAmerican Dream at the level of everyday Americans. Despite the championing ofhard work as a path to success, economic realities often prove difficult for

4. J. Baker to L.J. Walls, “Suggestion,” inter-plant correspondence, 21 October 1983, LawrenceCounty Historical Society archives (hereafter referred to as LCHS), New Castle, Pennsylvania.

5. “Stockholder Meeting Postponed,” AnchoScope 1, 1987, 1–7: 7 (at LCHS); Kenneth Tomp-kins, “Syracuse China Buys Competitor,” Syracuse Post-Standard, 23 January 1988, D1.

6. “Pottery ‘Phasing Out’ Operations During 1991,” New Castle News, 2 February 1991, 1;“Syracuse China to Close Plant in Pennsylvania, Move Jobs Here,” Syracuse Post Standard,3 February 1991, D1.

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industries to endure and many do not survive. These failures are revealing aboutthe conflict between identity and reality present in business history, and can helpus understand current industrial troubles in a clearer light.

Among the many ways in which Shenango China sought to stave off its failurewas through the continued innovation and promotion of its brand. Looking atShenango’s advertising from the promotion of the Castleton China line in theplant’s heyday of the 1940s into the years of decline following 1960 brings to lighta shift in tactics from an outward approach for American homes towards adver-tising reserved for business customers in the food-service industry. This shiftparalleled the closure of Castleton, marking the company’s disappearance frommost of the public eye. As Shenango moved through successive owners, itspresence in advertising and its autonomy shrank, since it became part of variousumbrella divisions. Eventually, Shenango itself was hardly recognized any more bycurrent and potential individual consumers. When Syracuse China closed theplant, there had been no public mention of Shenango in the food-service industryfor nearly a year.

As the United States grew into an industrial power in the late nineteenthcentury, advertising also expanded and modernized to showcase the exciting newworld that was at hand. Pamela Walker Laird describes the period as an era whenfocus shifted from the might of the producers and factory owners to the customer.In this way, marketing techniques became the “business of progress,” tied topromoting the idea of a better world where abundance and advancement were onepurchase away.7 In Imagining Consumers, Regina Blaszczyk discusses the impor-tance of marketing in the twentieth century as the country moved into a consumer-based society, arguing that “a company’s survival rested on its ability to envisionits target audience and to design products for them.”8 This was especially true inthe pottery-and-china industry, where customers still wanted the individualitypresent in a set of fine dinnerware and manufacturers had to remain flexibleenough to keep up with design. An example of this had been Josiah Wedgwood(1730–95) in England, who provided the model for marketing by only producingitems in short runs and switching as preferences changed. This allowed him topublicize his products as limited, thereby increasing demand, yet still helping to

7. Pamela Walker Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of ConsumerMarketing, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 1998, 2, 4–5.

8. Regina Lee Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Innovation and Design from Wedgewood toCorning, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000, 1–2.


standardize the taste of the very audience that sought individuality.9 Given theconsiderable investment spent in promoting consumer goods, it is not surprisingthat the way a company marketed its goods was critical to whether it succeededor failed. David Nye connects a business’s advertising to its very social andeconomic identity crafted for public display. Advertising aimed at the largerpopulation was meant to promote not only a product but an entire world, aconsumer’s paradise made better by the product or company shown.10

Shenango and its subsequent owners did their part to include the company inthe public market place from the establishment of Castleton China in the 1940suntil Syracuse bought the plant in 1988. Shenango’s advertising during theirfifty-year-cycle falls into several defined categories. Early advertisements appealedto the home environment, with additional emphasis on patriotism during theSecond World War. These advertisements, almost entirely for Castleton China,appeared in a variety of printed publications. In the postwar years, new strategiescentered on presenting Castleton and Shenango products as works of contempo-rary art for the home, restaurants, and hotels. In the 1960s, as Sobiloffs and thenInterpace took control of Shenango, marketing moved away from the publicsphere towards the food-service industry. Interpace and Anchor Hocking pushedappeals to customer service in Shenango’s final years, a method of promotion thateffectively removed Shenango from the eye of home users but simultaneouslyadapted to the highest customer priority as the company declined.

* * *In 1939, Castleton China emerged as a company after James M. Smith perfectedhis own vitrified china base body and joined forces with Louis E. Hellmann of theGermany-based Rosenthal China Company. Hellmann hoped to find a manufac-turer to produce patterns in his fine china for the American market during thecoming European conflict. The two men reached a production agreement withSmith investing $25,000 from Shenango Pottery to form the subsidiary company;the corporate offices were run by Hellmann in New York and production was totake place at the Shenango plant in New Castle.11 The first pieces of Castleton

9. Blasczcyk, Imagining Consumers, 3, 9, 12–13.

10. David Nye, Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890–1930, Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1985, 3–5, 123.

11. Shenango China Inc., History of Shenango China, 2; Harold Donaldson Eberlein and RodgerWearne Ramdell, The Practical Book of Chinaware, rev. ed., New York: J.B LippincottCompany, 1948, 305.


China entered American markets in the fall of 1940; in October, newspapersacross the country ran two advertisements under the heading “If Beauty TemptsYou,” featuring only the Castleton logo and descriptive text with space for aretailer’s information at the bottom. The more detailed “Presenting CastletonChina” featured a place setting of the new product on an elegant dinner table.These first ads appealed not only to home markets but also to patriotism as thecountry readied for war. The texts of both ads describe not only the beauty of theline, with a variety of similes such as a “pearl-like luster” and decorations“glowing as a summer sunset,” but also that it was “made in America, made ofAmerica” and “a proud patriotic possession.”12

During America’s involvement in the Second World War, Shenango had to cutback on its hotel-ware products in order to keep up with Castleton orders as wellas the high volume of production for the armed forces. With the arrival of peace,Shenango turned its focus back to hotel and home dinnerware. Elaine Tyler Mayhas traced the influence that political changes had on the domestic world. Whenthe Cold War reached a paranoid climax in McCarthyism, the family became thefocus of security against a frightening outside world. The promotion of the familyencouraged American women to return to their traditional “domestic contain-ment” in the home and shape their families by purchases that reflected socialprominence and the embrace of the American Dream.13 The wives of an affluentmiddle class became Shenango’s target audience as its advertising appeared bothin newspapers and in high-end magazine publications such as Mademoiselle,House Beautiful, House and Garden, and Modern Bride.14

Promotion of Shenango’s Castleton brand continued by employing new andfashionable marketing in both newspapers and magazines in order to cover thebroadest audience possible. Prewar pieces had often only featured a photographor illustration of the Castleton logo or a specific pattern, but after 1945 newspaperads began to feature the customers as well. These were often middle-class women(sometimes with their husbands) in marriage scenes or fashionable homes. A 1952piece entitled “The Right Note in the Bridal Chorus” shows a bride and groomhappily unwrapping their china wedding gift. The accompanying text reminded

12. See for example “Presenting Castleton China,” newspaper advertisement, Pittsburgh Press,14 October 1940, 15; “If Beauty Tempts You,” newspaper advertisement, St. Joseph (MO)News-Press, 9 March 1941, 2.

13. Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, New York:Basic Books, 1988, 9–12, 15.

14. “New Castleton Advertising Campaign Breaks in July,” Shenango Shenanigan, companynewsletter, June 1954, 1–4: 4 (at LCHS).


readers of the “freshness” and “stateliness” of a new bride, which correspondedperfectly to the long-lasting beauty of Castleton China. Several different choicesare shown, designed “with newlyweds in mind” with the assurance of “a host ofhappy and successful dinners to come.”15

Meanwhile, Castleton’s advertising for magazines featured photographs inglorious full color to show off the luxurious patterns better than a black-and-white photo or illustration could. Often advertisements followed in series arounda common theme, something Nye notes is key to reiterating the ideas and imagesof the company.16 The series titled “When Smart Women Entertain” thus featureshousewives coordinating their dining tables with Castleton and matching deco-rations. An ad for the “Peony” pattern shows a woman expertly arranging freshpeonies on the table by her place settings. Here the company sought to flatter theircustomers, making them proud not only to purchase quality American-madechina, but also use it in entertaining to showcase the elegance of their homes(Figure 1). Another campaign in 1954 featured Castleton as the centerpiece in aseries of Impressionist-inspired watercolor paintings which ran in House Beauti-ful, Modern Bride, and Mademoiselle. The images integrate the Castleton patternsinto vignettes of adoring young women and men (implied to be either engaged ornewlyweds), while the texts emphasized that the china settings “reward[ed] youforever for your choice” and were “lovely lasting things.”17 Yet while stressing thehigh quality of the collection, the advertising also makes Castleton within reachfor all new couples by noting the ease of purchase from any dealer and the manypayment plans available.

As American women adopted nationally-made chinaware in their homes, com-panies such as Castleton appealed to consumers through new shapes and designermotifs created by American artists.18 In 1942, the company approached theIndustrial Design department of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in NewYork to seek out a designer for a new modern shape in china.19 The staffrecommended Eva Zeisel, a Hungarian-born ceramic designer who had fled to

15. “Right Note in the Bridal Chorus,” newspaper advertisement, Denton Daily Record[Denton, Texas], 22 May 1952, section 2, page 3.

16. Nye, Image Worlds, 132.

17. “Beautiful Beginnings” [magazine advertisement], House Beautiful, September 1954, 77;“The Beautiful Things” [magazine advertisement], House Beautiful, May 1955, 76.

18. “American Potters Increasing Output,” New York Times, 16 November 1946, 16.

19. Edgar Kaufman, Jr, “The Department of Industrial Design,” The Bulletin of the Museum ofModern Art 1, 1946, 2–14: 6.


New York from the growing anti-Semitism in her native country in 1938. Herreputation in ceramic design came from her experience in industrial art, not fromher work in artisan handicraft, while she created pieces based on look and feel.With the set she designed for Castleton, Zeisel hoped to please American aesthet-ics by developing a service that was erect and dignified, or, in her own words, “tolook as if it was growing up from the table.”20

Despite a delay in production due to American involvement in World War II,the Zeisel earthenware, dubbed Museum White, debuted at MOMA in June 1946

20. Lucie Young, Eva Zeisel: Compact Design Portfolio, eds Marisa Bartolucci and Raul Cabra,San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2003, 16–18.

Figure 1: “When Smart Women Entertain,” Castleton advertisement from 1950 in full

color. Source: House Beautiful magazine, November 1950, 44. Used with permission.


as “the first fine china of modern design.”21 The set launched simultaneously infour premier New York stores and in all locations “demand exceeded produc-tion.”22 Zeisel’s work for Castleton was soon noted all across the country andplayed a large part in launching her American career. After the success of MuseumWhite, Castleton made the pattern available to the general public in 1951,marketing it as the “Fashion of the Future” and emphasizing the pieces as thefirst free form modern china ever created and the “envy of the world.”23 WithMuseum, homeowners could have a dinnerware set that was contemporary in thepost-war atomic age and “the heirloom of tomorrow.”24

With the overwhelming success of Museum, Castleton sought out other artdesigners to create new patterns for both the classic Corona shape and Zeisel’sMuseum. Amongst the many artists sought out by Hellmann were Thomas HartBenton, Ludwig Bemelmans, Roberto Montenegro, Thomas W. Nason, MarcelVertes, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. Like the original piece in the set, thesewere to increase Castleton’s draw around the country, and particularly in NewYork. Local publications in New Castle bragged about how “the Castleton displayis described in lavish terms by the New York papers [and] today it ranks as thefinest china in the world.”25 By 1949, the collection was complete and to celebrate,the company took the ceramic pieces as well as the artwork that inspired them ona national exhibition tour to several galleries, department, and jewelry storeswhich carried Castleton products. Dealers could present the show either in full orin two halves, while a representative from Castleton accompanied many of theshowings to lecture and spark interest in ceramics as art.26

Newspapers across the country placed advertising for the exhibition in theirpages with a number of the ceramics shown. The text in these celebrated thecombination of art and china in a variety of ways. Ads in Milwaukee played upthe American-made quality of the manufacture and the wide variety of patternsavailable because “Castleton is the manufacturer of American china that uses

21. Kaufman, “The Department of Industrial Design,” 6.

22. Young, Eva Zeisel, 18.

23. “The Fashion of the Future” [newspaper advertisement], Waterloo Daily Courier [Waterloo,Iowa], 10 December 1951, 9.

24. Ibid.

25. “Shenango Pottery is Boosted,” New Castle News, 10 November 1942, 7.

26. “Famous China Exhibited at S.L. Show,” Salt Lake Tribune, 8 June 1952, M5. The exhibi-tions for Castleton began in 1949 and continued across the country until around 1952. Theart pieces themselves were available as special-order studio patterns through Castleton untilthe subsidiary was discontinued in 1974.


world-famous artists to create styles for you.”27 In Charleston the text played upthe value of the art itself, “You will see how the works of these great artists aretaken off museum walls and onto your very own dinner table.”28 For the averageAmerican who had the taste for high art but not the budget, Castleton allowed forthe works of masters to be depicted on the fine china at home. San Antonio’s adsmade an appeal to modernity in the art of the ware, “with deference to culture ofthe past, with keen appreciation for the contemporary, urged by a vision of thefuture,” and trumpeted the excitement of having such a display in Texas.29

The exhibit itself contained all or part of the 28 paintings, drawings, andetchings used to create the ceramic goods and the finished china product and evensouvenir brochures for patrons. The Contemporary-Artist pieces were also for salealong with Castleton’s everyday lines at each venue. They could be produced onspecial order and ranged from $15.75 for a place setting of Zeisel’s Museumservice to $100 for a pair of dinner platters with Modigliani’s “Caryatides” all theway up to $600 for a dozen service plates featuring work by Picasso and plaquesby Salvador Dalí for $500 each.30 The brochures and displays proved that Castle-ton wanted to treat these pieces of earthenware as an art event, not a mere sale.

The Contemporary Artists collection showed Castleton’s ability to take chinabeyond the tabletop and into the world of art and fashion. Another campaignlaunched in 1954 for Castleton’s four new studio patterns (Thistle, Snowflake,Lace, and Turquoise). The new pieces were tied with complementing summerdresses by top 1950s fashion designers such as Oleg Cassini, Vera Maxwell, AdeleSimpson, and Mollie Paris. The promotion featured its own fashion show and afour-page color spread in Harper’s Bazaar: Sketches of the dresses and placesettings were accompanied by portraits of the designers, who called the china“movement and rhythm that is pure classic beauty,” “a table fashion that knowsno period,” and “so right for fashion you live with.”31

Despite the lavishness of the Contemporary-Artist series, the profits of Castle-ton and Shenango China declined in the course of the 1950s. In order to remain

27. “Announcing an Exhibition of Castleton China,” Milwaukee Journal, 17 April 1949, 3.

28. “Exquisite Castleton China,” Charleston Gazette, 8 November 1950, 25.

29. “Castleton Exhibit by Contemporary Artists,” San Antonio Express, 9 April 1950, 3C.

30. Castleton China, Inc., “The Castleton China Collection” [advertising brochure], New Castle,PA: Shenango China, Inc., c.1949. The brochure, which is in the author’s private collection,is printed for Hudson’s Department Store in Detroit.

31. “China to Complement Fashions,” New Castle News, 17 April 1953, 20; Harper’s Bazaar,April 1953, 48–50.


competitive and to cut costs, new steps were taken to keep the fine china and hotellines more attractive. When Sobiloffs purchased Shenango in 1959, the companyreturned to a focus on commercial ware. However, that did not mean thatShenango or its owners abandoned their dedication to art and design to sell theirproducts. This commitment came at a moment when art was of growing impor-tance to the china industry, both domestic and commercial. Under the advice ofDirector of Design Bill McBurney, Sobiloffs knew that simply copying Englishdesigns would not keep Shenango competitive in the growing post-war market.32

The period just before and following the Second World War brought an influx ofdesign to pottery which “[broke] with the time-worn patterns and designs offoreign inspiration.”33 Hazel Ervin, a ceramics expert and later a consultant forShenango’s subsidiary Castleton, suggested that, because twentieth-centuryAmericans enjoyed changing the styles of their cars and home interiors every fewyears, they might not want to hold on to their grandmother’s china. The look ofAmerican homes no longer matched the fussy, Victorian ideal and she felt thatchina needed to match the mood of the modernized family. Design based onmodern art was not only aesthetically pleasing but also practical. Patterns withnew configurations of rims or handles often stacked easier than old-fashionedchina, creating less opportunity for breakage and more space for storage.34

The first new contemporary shape for commercial use developed at Shenangowas FöRM, introduced in 1962. Shenango announced how

this contemporary shape has a pure architectural beauty to dramatize avariety of tabletop models. [. . .] You’ll find that FöRM offers unique advan-tages with its beauty. The functional shape permits lighter weight, yet it isstronger. It stacks more securely, is easier to store, and carry. The two fingerhandle on the cup is a pleasure to hold.35

The key developer of FöRM, Bill McBurney, emphasized that the design wasthe key to its success because it eliminated many of the impractical features oftraditional china. The rim of the dinner plate was removed and the size reduced

32. Bill McBurney, second interview by Beverley Zona, April 1991, McBurney residence, NewCastle, PA (Shenango China Heritage Project, Lawrence County Historical Society, NewCastle, Pennsylvania, 9). Transcript by the author.

33. “Tradition Ignored in American China,” New York Times, 7 November 1942, 1.

34. “Art: The Shape of Dishes to Come,” Time, 29 July 1946 (available at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,776969,00.html, accessed 14 August 2011); “Table Setting:China Needs to Keep Up with the Times,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10 April 1951, 11.

35. Shenango China, Inc., Stylebook 70, New Castle, PA: Shenango China, Inc., 1965, 2.


from nine inches to seven to be more compact while holding the same amount offood. The plates, cups, and even sauceboats stacked into one another to save spaceand prevent breakage from falls. The design of the cups was also unique in thatthey contained redesigned handles for an easy grasp and were shaped to appearlarger than their actual size, saving money for restaurants by cutting back onrefills. McBurney looked back on FöRM as “putting in twenty-five years ofexperience and everything I knew” for an economic shape that would impresscurrent and potential customers.36

In 1966 amidst great fanfare, Shenango introduced its newest shape, Citation,at the National Hotel and Motel Exposition in New York City. Nearly three yearsin the making, Citation resembled fine china in appearance but was made durablefor the hotel and restaurant industries. The shape was thinner and the color whiterthanks to the presence of alumina in the body, yet it still withstood the wear-and-tear of heavy use. Shenango’s reference to fashion in commercial dining aimed atboth aesthetics and sales. Citation was met with enthusiastic responses based onits design, but it also brought the presale order numbers so high that many clientswere back-ordered to spring delivery.37 Shenango bragged that Citation was awinner in the industry, noting the fast pace at which clients, including the newRegency Hyatt hotel in Atlanta, ordered the line. Management also noted thatCitation was popular with “price buyers,” customers who purchased based onvalue, not quality.38 As the table-top industry grew more competitive, even pricebuyers were forced to take note that fashion led to greater sales and Citation’sbeauty was matched by its durability. The life expectancy of the product loweredeven the high price of Citation to the point of value. Citation continued to be ahigh-selling product throughout the late 1960s in both its plain shape and in avariety of contemporary patterns.

The dedication to new shapes and designs was reaffirmed when Interpace tookover the company in 1968. In their annual report to stockholders, Interpacechampioned the necessity of fashion to the table-top china industry and recog-nized the success Shenango saw by appealing towards color and design. Despitethe obvious expense of creating a new shape in earthenware, Interpace felt it wasa necessary investment to satisfy customers. Both internal reports and newsletters

36. Second interview with McBurney, 9–10.

37. “Shenango to Unveil ‘Citation’,” New Castle News, 8 November 1966, 8; “New ChinaProduct Shown,” New Castle News, 29 December 1966, 13.

38. “Top Foodservice Firms Swing Vote to Citation,” Shenango Table Top-ics, company news-letter, January 1967, 1–4: 1 (at LCHS); “Citation Winning Over Price Buyers Too!,”Shenango Table Top-ics, company newsletter, July 1967, 1–4: 1 (at LCHS).


for employees and salesmen agreed that the marketing technique of fashion-oriented pieces with eye-catching colorful advertising was key to the increasedsales of 1969 as Interpace took over the plant, arguing that “Shenango’s newshapes have been one of the key reasons why we’re walking off with an everincreasing market share” in the late 1960s and early 1970s.39

Other new shapes soon followed throughout the 1970s. Omega, an eventhinner alumina coupe shape than Citation, appeared in 1970 as “delicate, thin—like the china you find in an elegant home setting . . . [i]ts cost story is as excitingas its beauty . . . [i]t’s whiter than white.”40 Perle, a more traditional design withpearl-like indentations along the rim, followed in 1975. Unlike previous shapeswhich had mainly been promoted in their pure white undecorated form, Perle wasvery successful in a variety of Shenango’s new patterns.41 The last major productShenango China introduced was the Stackables line in 1978 in response to agrowing trayware market in hospitals and cafeterias. The Stackables boastedhigh-angled sides and the only interlocking feet on flat items to stack securely inplace. They were also made in Hilumina to be high-strength and safe in the newlypopular microwave ovens.42

In 1966 several strategies had been implemented to revitalize the Castletonlines as well.43 First, the company eliminated many older patterns and less popularshapes. Next, for the new Symphony line, Castleton downsized the companionpieces, which sometimes numbered as many as two dozen for certain patterns,into the thirteen most used pieces. Also, the company cut down on the number ofstock patterns and shifted many existing ones into custom orders.

In 1961, Sobiloffs approved the creation of a new low-cost line designed tocompete with imported china because the new pieces themselves were made in

39. Interpace Corporation, 1969 Annual Report, Parsippany, NJ: Interpace, 1969, 5; “ShenangoShapes the Future,” Shenango Table Top-ics, company newsletter, January 1969, 1–4: 1 (atLCHS).

40. “Here Comes Omega . . . the Shaped Shape,” Shenango Table Top-ics, company newsletter,September 1970, 1–4: 1 (at LCHS).

41. “Perle Wins Wide Approval,” Shenango Table Top-ics, company newsletter, May 1975, 1–4:1 (at LCHS).

42. “Shenango Introduces . . . The Stackables,” Shenango Pacesetter [company newsletter], Sep-tember 1978, 1–4: 1 (author’s collection); “One Name: Tangerine” [advertisement], Restau-rants and Institutions, 15 July 1982, 249.

43. W.W. Pfeiffer to W.J. Rech, “Discontinuance of Castleton Items,” inter-plant correspondence,23 November 1966 (at LCHS); Bettie Natcher to W.W. Pfeiffer, “Castleton Line for 1967,”inter-plant correspondence, 24 October 1966 (at LCHS).


Japan.44 Not only did this cut down on production costs for Shenango Ceramicsas a whole, but Independence Ironstone place settings were available to customersfor as little as $9.95 per place setting (compared to average prices of $15 or higherper traditional Castleton setting). This new Independence Ironstone line would bemarked with the Castleton name and sold to dealers accompanied by matchingglassware also made in Japan. The company promoted Independence as fresh andcontemporary for fashion-minded couples of the 1960s. A 1963 advertisementpictured an older (and obviously wealthier) man and woman playing a guessinggame of “what’s black and white and fashion all over?”45 A photo of the new“Classica” pattern by Castleton’s Independence Ironstone appears underneaththe illustrated couple, who mention the chic new pattern that would be perfect“on that magenta linen we brought back from Madrid,” while still being durableenough for the oven and dishwasher so that “cook will love it!”46

By the early 1970s, the Shenango-made Castleton was all but dropped in favorof the imported Independence Ironstone and the parent company’s FranciscanChina line. Castleton faded, as did its advertising. Ads no longer ran in majormagazines and appeared in only a few newspapers. Even these had become ashadow of their former selves. Gone were the clever illustrations and appeals tosocial dignity. Reflecting Interpace’s lack of commitment to the high-end line, a1967 feature for the Blue Medallion pattern showed only an illustration of thepattern.47

After phasing out the Castleton lines, Interpace devoted its energy to promot-ing Shenango’s hotel ware and, like their predecessors, used art as a means to selltheir new products. As a starting point, the new owners inherited the greatestadvertising venture in Shenango’s history: Stylebook 70.48 Released in 1965,Sobiloffs and Shenango touted the full-color catalog as a “revolution.”49 Unlikeold-fashioned product catalogs that consisted of little more than a stock photo ofone dinner plate per pattern, Stylebook 70 engaged the chinaware with its sur-roundings (Figure 2). They were placed in table settings with color coordination

44. “Castleton Plans Move to Strengthen Sales,” New Castle News, 20 January 1961, 12.

45. “What’s Black and White and Fashion All Over?,” The New Yorker, 14 September 1963,n.p.

46. Ibid.

47. Miami Herald, 17 May 1967, [advertisement] 5A.

48. Shenango China Inc., Stylebook 70 [table-top catalog], New Castle, PA: Shenango China,1965.

49. Ibid.


between the pieces and the scenery. In a move that “tosse[d] out old-fashionedtabletop selling methods,” the place settings pictured food as part of the tables-cape for the first time and included photos of actual people using and enjoying thechina, making the visualization of Shenango’s ware in a restaurant setting moreconcrete and believable.50

Stylebook 70, with its fifty-two pages, ten new patterns, and more than onehundred color photos, rethought how china was viewed in catalog form, as it“introduce[d] the first coordinated fashion-conscious merchandising approach tothis key part of food service.”51 Management lauded the huge response to thepublication at its first public showing in New York: Dealers agreed that it couldboost sales for Shenango upwards of thirty percent by just showing an image ofthe product to go with a description and by showing the complete tabletop atuse.52 The lavish praise of Stylebook 70 in New York led to greater sales confi-dence: 25,000 copies were distributed within the first year of publication. Style-

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. “Revolution,” Shenango Table-Topics, company newsletter, October 1965, 1–4: 1 (atLCHS); “I’m Running out of Superlatives!,” Shenango Table Top-ics, company newsletter,November 1965, 1–4: 1 (at LCHS).

Figure 2: A page from Stylebook 70. New Castle, PA: Shenango China, Inc., 1965. Source:

Lawrence County Historical Society, New Castle, Pennsylvania. Used with permission.


book 70 succeeded in boosting Shenango’s presence and won a number of awardsincluding the Printing Institute of America’s first prize in the Geographic Artscategory and the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company’s Printing Jobof the Year. Most importantly, Stylebook 70 helped bring in an additional$500,000 in sales for Shenango China in 1965 and 1966.53

Interpace took a page from Stylebook 70 and designed innovative advertisingcampaigns that included striking uses of color, lighting, and props. They remindedboth salesmen and potential clients that sales needed a push from clever marketingto gain interest and eventually deals. A 1970 ad entitled “It’s IN” for the new“IN” pattern on Shenango’s FöRM shape used extensive color coordination to getthe point across, pairing the brick red accents on the ceramic with matchingaccessories and red wine for a look that stressed the need for contemporaryfashion: “Are your tabletops in with the 1970s? Get with it!”54 Instead of keepingup with neighbors, now Shenango China was pushed as a tool to compete withother restaurants. Subsequent advertising also featured in-use products photo-graphed with food. A series from 1971 entitled “You Think A Lot Of . . .”emphasized china carrying items such as steaks and specialty desserts.55 The textnotes that even the best dishes need help with appearance as customers takecareful notice of the presentation as well as the taste. It added that a meal couldbe complemented and enhanced to the point that a restaurant owner would befoolish not to change over to Shenango.

A devotion to the customer continued in ads from 1972 and 1973 in the “LookAt Your Food the Way Your Customer Does” series for several stock patterns inFöRM and other classic shapes.56 Interpace announced that this series “zero[es] inon precisely what makes this entire china industry go—seeing the tabletop as theultimate customer sees it—and reacts.”57 A woman reaches for coffee to go withher dessert as the text notes that Shenango’s FöRM shape china looks better to acustomer in addition to being durable, stackable, and low cost. This forcedrestaurateurs to actually think about their client’s desires when designing a décor

53. “Shenango has Top Stylebook,” New Castle News, 13 December 1966, 9.

54. “It’s IN” [advertisement for trade journals], 1970 (at LCHS).

55. “You Think A Lot of Your Steak” [advertisement for trade journals, 1971] (at LCHS); “YouThink A Lot of Your Specialties” [advertisement for trade journals, 1971] (at LCHS).

56. “New Shenango Ads—Selling from the Customer’s View,” Shenango Table Top-ics[company newsletter], March 1972, 1–4: 3–4 (at LCHS).

57. “Look At Your Food the Way Your Customer Does,” Shenango Table Top-ics [companynewsletter], March 1972, 1–4: 3–4 (at LCHS).


instead of taking their patronage for granted. Customers were pickier than everand even a simple steak was no longer good enough without the addition ofappealing china such as Shenango (Figure 3).

Despite the colorful and eye-catching marketing, Shenango was falling behindin the course of the 1970s. In 1974, a stagnant economy led to the first non-recordsetting year for Shenango after Interpace took over. Earnings were already down

Figure 3: An example of INTERPACE’s “Look at Food the Way Your Customer Does”

advertisements. Source: Shenango Table Top-ics, company newsletter, May 1972, 1–4:4.

Lawrence County Historical Society, New Castle, Pennsylvania. Used with permission.


that year because Interpace had made three millon dollars worth of renovations tothe plant. Interpace ran an advertisement in trade magazines acknowledging that,while the renovations and new machinery carried a heavy price tag that, becauseof production slowdowns and shipment delays, was ultimately carried over to thecustomer, it still believed that elements such as the new Reidhammer kiln made thesacrifices worth the wait:

We had problems last year.You know it.We know it.From here on, we’re not going to make fancy promises.We’re just going to deliver.58

Interpace recognized that appealing to a new start for clients could also be anappropriate moment to refresh Shenango’s offerings. To do this, it took measuresto emphasize the low price of Shenango as a way for revitalizing a tabletop on abudget. Direct advertising in their Table Top-ics newsletter acknowledged that therestaurant industry was stagnating and restaurant owners watched expenses morecarefully than ever. But while the times were tough, “people don’t eat out just toeat”: quality in food and even china service still mattered a great deal to customersas eating out became more of a luxury.59 For that reason, Shenango continued tooffer its patterns at a better value so that even restaurant owners on the tightestbudgets could consider redesigning their establishments and maximizing patronsatisfaction rates. By 1975, Interpace offered its lowest price ever on five differentstock designs that “anyone can afford.”60 Additionally, the company promoted areturn to some of its older designs in an appeal to nostalgia felt by customers, andalso as a way to sell new china without having the expense of creating newpatterns. Shenango not only had to deal with the faltering economy, but it was stillunder the constant threat of imported (and lower quality) china. As a result, theads stressing lower costs also noted that Shenango was every bit as affordable as“cheap” pieces from overseas.61

58. “Growth Plans Given the Nod by Interpace,” New Castle News, 25 January 1975, 21; and“$3,000,000 is a lot of money to spend speeding up china delivery,” Shenango Table Top-ics,January 1976, 1–4: 4 (at LCHS).

59. “People Don’t Eat Out Just to Eat” [advertisement for trade journals], 1974 (at LCHS).

60. “Shenango Backs You Up with Service and Deliveries You Can Now Count On,” ShenangoTable Top-ics [company newsletter], February 1975, 1–4: 1 (at LCHS).

61. “Introducing Shenango Low Price Value Patterns” [advertisement for trade journals], 1975(at LCHS); “Why in the World?” [advertisement for trade journals], 1976 (at LCHS).


Interpace continued to focus on its foodservice customers for Shenango China.By the late 1970s, the company did not find the expected results and sold the plantto Anchor Hocking. At first, Anchor held Shenango as its own independentsubsidiary and continued marketing the product to the foodservice industry, albeitwith less of the artistic flair and more integration with its existing products. In a1981 advertisement, “All Across the Board We Deliver Value,” the artistic style ofadvertising is replaced with a traditional restaurant setting displaying theShenango products at an elegant table accompanied by Anchor Hocking glass-ware and flatware.62 Anchor continued to proclaim its ability to fill an instant needfor new china service in their “One Name” campaign in 1982 and 1983.63 Theseadvertisements used a block pattern spreading across several pages of a typicaltrade magazine, each containing a photo of one Shenango place setting (whichrotated through different patterns in each use of the ad across a year and a halfspan). At the end came a final block with the Shenango logo and orderinginformation. It stressed the company’s well-known name within the industry andits eighty years of experience as an assurance that Shenango had something instock to satisfy the needs of any restaurant.

By 1984, Anchor Hocking was losing a large amount of money from theirHousehold Division lines, including Shenango, which had not turned a profitsince 1981. Anchor concluded that the pressure from imported goods and unfa-vorable exchange rates were largely responsible for the lost earnings. In order tosave money, Anchor decided to merge Shenango and the rest of the Householdlines into their Foodservice Division, and focus solely on restaurant and hotelaccounts instead of home-based customers. By consolidating the various divi-sions of pottery, glass, and kitchenware, Anchor Hocking aimed to movetowards “the development of more complete product lines, rather than theintroduction of new products which may not compliment current or importeditems.”64 The decision saved money because it unified advertising for the manypieces for each line into one campaign, which was to target one specific marketevery few months. A prototype of this practice began by the summer of 1983,when the “One Name” ads were converted into a new strategy called “One

62. “All Across the Board We Deliver Value” [magazine advertisement], Restaurants and Insti-tutions, 1 April 1981, 116–17.

63. “One Name” [magazine advertisement], Restaurants and Institutions, 15 March 1982, 68–9.

64. Anchor Hocking Corporation, 1984 Annual Report, Lancaster, OH: Anchor Hocking, 1985,2, 7–9; “Pottery Trying to Get Back on Track with Marketing,” New Castle News [date andmonth unknown], 1985 (at LCHS).


Call.”65 The format remained the same with the small blocks of each productspread across several pages. But now Anchor Hocking products were mixed inwith the Shenango designs and the final block featured not the ShenangoIndian, but the Anchor Foodservice logo as the place to turn to for both chinaand glass needs.

Anchor Hocking continued to advertise Shenango China placement within theFoodservice Division of the company in their subsequent campaigns such as1984’s “Everything Under the Sun.”66 It promoted Shenango as an affordable,charming product within the greater foodservice division as an all-in-one conve-nience to alleviate a customer’s hassle of having to go to several sources to furnishtheir business. The images of these advertisements downplayed Shenango andonly featured its items within settings of other Anchor products. “Discover theDifference” from 1986 did not show the vast table settings of earlier years, butinstead one single Shenango plate in the very old Carlton design, promoted byAnchor Hocking in an appeal to nostalgia, overwhelmed by three AnchorHocking glasses.67 The Carlton plate got a brief mention in the text (ironicallydescribing the shape as modern), which did not match the description of theglassware’s “outstanding durability” and “casual elegance.”68 While the twoitems were meant to be complementary, the advertising tends to favor the moreestablished Anchor lines over Shenango.

The incorporation of Shenango China into the Foodservice Division helpedcut down on advertising costs for Anchor Hocking but did not improve sales tothe point that the company could stave off a takeover bid. Starting in August1986 and continuing for the next several months, Anchor Hocking was sub-jected to an attempted buyout from the Newell Company, a hardware andhomeware manufacturer best known as the parent company of Rubbermaid.69 InJanuary, the corporation took the offer and put the purchase up for stockholderapproval. An announcement in the corporation-wide newsletter, AnchoScope,

65. “One Call” [magazine advertisement], Restaurants and Institutions, 15 July 1983, 274, 282,286.

66. “Everything Under the Sun” [magazine advertisement], Restaurants and Institutions, 18 July1984, 20–1.

67. “Discover the Difference” [magazine advertisement], Restaurant and Hotel Design, 19 April1986, 15A.

68. Ibid.

69. “Company News: Newell Bids for Hocking,” New York Times, 7 November 1986 (availableat: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/07/business/company-news-newell-bids-for-hocking.html, accessed 14 August 2011).


asked stockholders to approve the merger with Newell in their forthcomingsummer meeting. The two companies, Anchor Hocking and Newell, wouldbecome subsidiaries to a newly-created holding company and function as before.The fate of Anchor’s divisions, such as Shenango, was a bit murkier.70

Soon after purchasing Anchor Hocking and its assets, Newell showed littleinterest in keeping Shenango around and put the division on the market in late1987.71 Syracuse China, Shenango’s largest domestic competitor, spared no timein acquiring the New Castle plant by January 1988. While Syracuse’s motives mayhave been to shut down Shenango, they initially made the public claim that theirownership of Shenango, along with its former subsidiary Mayer China, was aimedat providing hotel and restaurant owners with one convenient central companyfor multiple china needs. Syracuse took out advertising in several leading trademagazines to announce their “Revolution in China” through their acquisition ofShenango as well as re-promoting their ownership of Mayer.72 The shining silverbackground displayed the logos of the three china companies and in promotingMayer and Shenango as part of Syracuse, the ad assured customers that “each ofthese dinnerware brands would retain its own uniqueness.”73 As always, theultimate goal of these acquisitions was to serve customers better and with thethree leading foodservice providers now merged together, Syracuse reasoned thatsuch service would be better than ever.

Syracuse promised autonomy to both of its subordinate companies, yet itignored Shenango China in its advertising for the first year and a half of itsownership. The first (and only) promotional piece for Shenango appeared in May1990 to feature its new Great Plate.74 Advertising such a non-traditional itemmight be a way to gain interest among customers, but it also reinforced Syracuse’smarketing strategy towards Shenango. Syracuse maintained its own china line asa product for classy, high-end restaurants and did the same with Mayer during theyears of its ownership of the latter company. Shenango, on the other hand, was

70. Stephen Phillips, “Company News: Newell to Purchase Anchor Hocking,” New York Times,25 February 1987, D4; “Stockholders Meeting Postponed,” AnchoScope corporation news-letter, Spring 1987, 1–8: 8 (at LCHS); “Plan Will be Developed in Effort to Keep Pottery,”New Castle News, April 1987 (at LCHS).

71. See for example “Another Revolution in China” [magazine advertisement], Restaurant andHotel Design, May 1988, 61.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. “Not Too Rich for Your Taste” [magazine advertisement], Restaurants and Institutions, 7March 1990, 117.


reserved for middle and lower-end institutions who wanted durability and afford-ability. A product like the Great Plate could have multiple uses for smallerrestaurant owners who were trying to get by on a tight budget.

The early days of Shenango saw its products marketed in a number of thematicways through the world of newspapers, magazines, and home brochures. As theplant moved from owner to owner, the overall strategy of promotion changedfrom one of showcasing the company and its products to one of highly selectiveadvertising for only the foodservice industry via industry magazines and tradeshows. The end of Castleton China was emblematic for this internalization: Theloss of public recognition from no longer producing Castleton may have beengreater than the savings that Interpace claimed by its discontinuation. In the yearsthat followed, the plant faced a marked decline in demand and its closure becamea real threat. Decreased public promotion was accompanied by decreasedautonomy for Shenango: By the time Anchor Hocking bought the company, theone-time leader of commercial chinaware was reduced to a component in anoverall food-service package. When Syracuse took over for the plant’s final years,it made a token effort to market Shenango products and then only as low-endchina, a far cry from the Shenango lines used by dignitaries and premier hotels inthe 1940s and 1950s. The lack of advertising proved fatal. David Nye notes thatvisual advertising is more than just illustrations but the very ideology of acompany itself put into print: “To survive, a corporation must provide employeesand customers with interpretations of the world.”75 Without this construction andvisualization of ideology, Shenango fell to failure.

Syracuse’s treatment of Shenango added insult to injury, yet it was not surprisinggiven Syracuse’s hidden agenda to shut the company down despite the best effortsof local management to keep the plant open. By that time, however, the rest of thecountry was unaware of Shenango’s failure. The people who worked for years atthe Pottery (a colloquial term for the plant) and the citizens of New Castle knewwhat the failure of the company meant and expressed their emotions in a numberof ways. “We heard rumors that Syracuse would always try to get us,” handlerDolores De Lio recalled. “And when they did acquire, it was said that in three yearswe were gonna go down . . . [a]nd by God, we did.”76 For many employees,including Director of Design McBurney, the downward spiral began with Inter-

75. Nye, Image Worlds, 148.

76. Dolores De Lio, interview by Steve Keller, De Lio residence, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 23April 1992 (Shenango China Heritage Project, Lawrence County Historical Society, NewCastle, Pennsylvania, 16). Transcript by the author.


pace’s treatment of the Castleton line in the 1960s and inability to properly marketthe hotelware segment. Interpace had its own Franciscan line of fine china, asMcBurney noted, and “[t]here was nobody at Franciscan who knew a thing abouthotel and restaurant ware . . . [they d]idn’t know a thing about commercialdesign.”77 Shenango employees Anthony Conti and Ed Bistyga lamented the loss ofthe “Cadillac of the Industry” in Castleton China and blamed Interpace for thediscontinuation, suggesting that despite claiming the prohibitive cost, the conglom-erate wanted to focus instead on the line that it already owned before the purchaseof Shenango; as Bistyga argued, “That was your prestige, that carried . . . [for,w]hen you mention Shenango China that was automatically Castleton and Havi-land . . . [and p]eople that used to work there, they could never accept the fact thatthey done away with that.”78

The shutdown of Shenango China and its impact on New Castle represents theall-too-real scenario of a company trying to stave off failure and its effect on thewhole community. De-industrialization transplanted the failures of industriesonto entire communities, bringing to light the paradox in American societybetween success and failure. In his study of merchant business in San Francisco,Peter Decker outlines this concept as reaching back to the nineteenth century.79 Henotes that the unique characteristics of the West did not make it immune to thespecter of failure and that the many merchants lured to California by newspapersadvertising wild riches experienced their share of hardships and ultimate failure.As California became more connected to the outside world, railroads and steam-ships brought cheap competition from the East Coast and abroad that devastatedlocal merchants. The added stress of unstable economic cycles in the late nine-teenth century was the final blow for many: Of the influx of merchants arriving inSan Francisco in the 1850s, over 80% failed and left the area within the next eightyears. Decker acknowledges the damage done to small business by outside com-petition, something Shenango China faced, and blames the failure of many mer-chants on their inability to move up into other professions. In his mind, the reality

77. Bill McBurney, third interview by Beverley Zona, April 1991, McBurney residence, NewCastle, Pennsylvania (Shenango China Heritage Project, Lawrence County Historical Society,New Castle, Pennsylvania, 9). Transcript by the author.

78. Ed Bistyga and Anthony Conti, first interview by Steve Keller, Lawrence County HistoricalSociety, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 1 April 1992 (Shenango China Heritage Project,Lawrence County Historical Society, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 12–13). Transcript by theauthor.

79. Peter R. Decker, Fortunes and Failures: White-Collar Mobility in Nineteenth-Century SanFrancisco, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1978, vii–viii, 7, 159–70.


of the American Dream was in fact far from the ideal but the San Franciscomerchants cannot be blamed for failing to meet that ideal.

Scott Sandage explores deeper the ramifications of not meeting nineteenth-century expectations, which held that to fail is to commit the greatest destructionof character possible: “Over the past two hundred years in the United States, theimage of failure has shifted, from the overambitious bankrupt to the underambi-tious [sic] plodder [, but t]hroughout our history, the loser bears material witnessto the American Dream gone wrong.”80

Unlike Decker, who alludes to the paradox of the unattainable AmericanDream, Sandage’s words speak directly to the continued persistence of failure inAmerican society and suggest that it was (or is) a given rather than an exception.From the nineteenth-century panics to the Great Depression to the recessionsrocking the second half of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centu-ries, industries have failed at alarming rates and sometimes people have gonepersonally bankrupt in staggering numbers as well. The specter of a closed factoryor business is impossible to avoid and can no longer be blamed simply onindividual shortcomings.

Shenango China tried not to fail. It made improvements in product andmachinery, worked for quality, and employed diverse advertising tactics. Butseveral times these strategies proved too costly, outdated, or simply did not work.Its workers saw a plant that never recovered from the retirement of its originalowner and the early lawsuit that rocked the core of management. This started thepottery down a path of absentee corporate control that made attempts to expandthe company, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. By accident of industry orwith explicit intent, it was a key competitor, Syracuse China, that eventuallyclosed the plant.

David Nye marks photography as vital to understanding complex histories oflarge companies like Shenango. He notes that corporations create multilayeredinterpretations in a mix of ideology and identity through the use of public images.With the loss of that imagery comes a loss of identity as a whole.81 Understandingthe ways in which Shenango China sought to shape and preserve its own positivepublic image and identity while trying to survive the tumultuous economy, foreigncompetition, and ultimately its own shortfalls is important to thinking about theway that industry operates and affects all social levels in the twentieth century.

80. Scott Sandage, Born Losers: A History of Failure in America, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,2005, 276.

81. Nye, Image Worlds, 158–9.


“It Takes More Than a Little Parsley:” The Public Marketing Strategies of the Shenango China...

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