The Gorham Manufacturing Company was one of the largest [1] American manufacturers of sterling and silverplate and a foundry for bronze sculpture. [2]
The Gorham Manufacturing Company was one of the largest [1] American manufacturers of sterling and silverplate and a foundry for bronze sculpture. [2]
Gorham Silver was founded in Providence, Rhode Island, 1831 by Jabez Gorham, [3] a master craftsman, in partnership with Henry L. Webster. [4] The firm's chief product was spoons of coin silver. The company also made thimbles, combs, jewelry, and other small items. In 1842, the Congress enacted a tariff which effectively blocked the importation of silverware from outside the United States, which aided the American silver industry. Jabez Gorham did not take full advantage of this opportunity, but in 1847 Jabez retired and his son, John Gorham [5] succeeded him as head of the company.
John Gorham introduced mechanized production methods, enlarged the premises in downtown Providence, improved the designs, and expanded the product line. In 1852, Gorham toured many of Europe's silver workshops and manufacturers, speaking with individual specialists, including master craftsmen and toolmakers. He sought highly skilled foreign workmen to train his American workers and hired George Wilkinson, a premier designer and workshop manager, from England. In 1865, the Rhode Island legislature granted a charter in the name of Gorham Manufacturing Company and in 1890, the company relocated to a factory on Adelaide Avenue in Providence.
During the heyday of American silver manufacturing, approximately 1850–1940, Gorham was highly influential. William Christmas Codman, one of Gorham's most noted designers, created the Chantilly design in 1895, which has become the most famous of Gorham's flatware patterns. The company has produced matching hollowware in both sterling and silverplate.
In 1884, the company opened a store in the Ladies' Mile shopping district in Manhattan, New York City, but moved in 1905 to a Fifth Avenue building which it commissioned from architect Stanford White. In 1906, Gorham purchased another long-time rival, New Jersey-based Kerr & Co. In 1924, the company absorbed the Massachusetts jewelry company Whiting Manufacturing Company, founded by William Dean Whiting in 1866. [6]
Textron purchased the company in 1967, a move that some critics claim decreased quality due to management's lack of understanding of Gorham's specialty, producing high-quality sterling silverware and holloware. [7] Textron began planning to sell the unit in 1988, completing the sale in 1989 to Dansk International Designs. [8] [9] Brown-Forman Corporation acquired Gorham from Dansk in 1991. [10] The unit was sold in 2005 to Department 56 in the Lenox holdings transaction, with the resulting company renamed as Lenox Group. [11] [12]
However, in 2009 Lenox Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and it was subsequently acquired by Clarion Capital Partners, now operating under the name Lenox Corporation, which has three operating divisions, Lenox, Dansk, and Gorham. [12] [13] [14] [15]
The White House has used Gorham silver services during many administrations. Mary Todd Lincoln purchased an impressive tea and flatware service for use in the White House in 1859. The tea service was presented to the National Museum of American History in 1957. [16] Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant asked Gorham to commemorate the country's one-hundredth anniversary with a spectacular Century Vase that contained over 2,000 oz (57,000 g) of sterling silver, and in 1899, it produced a grand "loving cup" composed of 70,000 dimes was designed for Admiral George Dewey. Colonel Henry Jewett Furber, president of Universal Life Insurance Company of New York, placed the largest single commission Gorham ever received for what became known as the famous Furber service. The opulent 740-piece service represents Victorian era dining at its most elaborate. The monumental silver and parcel-gilt "Neptune" epergne made for Furber as part of this service was displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Textron donated a large portion of the service along with other pieces to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum and they are on display in the permanent collection of American decorative arts. [17]
In 1907, Gorham created an elaborate silver service for the battleship USS Rhode Island. When the Rhode Island was decommissioned following World War I, the US Navy returned the service to the state for public display. It is now on display in the State Room of the Rhode Island State House. [18] The George W. Bush family chose Gorham's Chantilly as the flatware service on Air Force One.
In 1910, the AEIC (Association of Edison Illuminating Companies) commissioned a small bronze Bust of Thomas Edison (3.75" tall) from Gorham Designers Wm. C. & E. E. Codman. Edison personally attended the 26th Annual Convention at the Hotel Frontenac on Sep. 7 and all 173 Attendees received the one-pound Souvenirs. Several of the little sculptures still survive (one in Glenmont, NJ), and historian Allen Koenigsberg is still seeking the paper trail for their creation.
In 1921, the company bought the rights to The Hiker, a statue by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson. It commemorates the American soldiers who fought in the Spanish–American War, the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine–American War. Over the next 44 years Gorham cast at least 50 Hiker statues. [19] A copy can be found in Providence's Kennedy Plaza, and there are several in nearby Massachusetts towns including Lynn, Wakefield, Haverhill, Taunton and Fall River.
Gorham artisans also sculpted the famous monument of George Washington in the Capitol's Rotunda, the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that overlooks the Museum of Natural History in New York, and the famous Independent Man which tops the Rhode Island State House.
Gorham designed a number of elaborate trophies for sporting events, including the Borg-Warner Trophy for the Indianapolis 500, designed by Robert J. Hill.
In 1886 a commentator wrote in the London Magazine of Art:
If we go to one of the first London silversmiths and ask for spoons and forks, we are met at once with the smiling query. "Yes, Sir; fiddle or old English?" Fiddle or old English! If we decline both those chaste designs we are assured that there is still a large selection of patterns remaining. The "Lily", the "Beaded", "King's Pattern", and "Queen's Pattern." There perforce, our choice must end....Mark the difference, in this one article, between the supine conservatism of the English manufacturers and the alertness and constant progress of the American maker. For instance [Gorham] would not be satisfied unless it produced every year or two new patterns, nearly all of which are beautiful, and of which they will produce a complete service of all articles for table use from a salt-spoon to a soup ladle.
In 1893, a French observer was surprised by America's "remarkable fertility in the variety of its patterns for table services." Of the flatware patterns designed by F. A. Heller (1839–1904) for Gorham he wrote "we have no idea of the richness of ornamentation of these services, and of the amount of talent expended by him in the engraving of the dies which he has made on the other side of the Atlantic." [20]
The Gorham Manufacturing complex included over 30 buildings over a 37 acres in the Elmwood neighborhood of Providence. [21] The site, located between Mashapaug Pond and Adelaide Avenue in an area called Reservoir Triangle, began operation in 1890 and closed in 1986. [21] The City of Providence acquired the property in 1992 and demolished the buildings in 1997. [21] In 2006, the Alvarez High School was built on the site despite extensive soil and groundwater contamination in the area. [22] High levels of heavy metals, VOCs, PAHs, and dioxin are found in Mashapaug Cove. [23]
Two buildings connected with the Gorham Manufacturing Company are designated as official New York City designated landmarks by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. [24]
This Queen Anne style building located at 889–891 Broadway at the corner of East 19th Street in the Flatiron District of Manhattan, New York City, within the Ladies' Mile Historic District, was designed by Edward Hale Kendall and built in 1883–84 as the retail store of the company. At first, the company utilized the two lower floors with the remainder rented as bachelor apartments, but after a few years Gorham expanded into the rest of the building. The company left in 1905, and the building was converted by John H. Duncan in 1912 into lofts and offices, removing a corner tower and adding roof dormers. In 1977, it was restored to its original configuration, with a retail store on the ground floor and the remaining floors made into cooperative apartments. The building was designated a New York City landmark on June 19, 1984. [24] : 76 [25] [26] : 195
When the company left its Ladies' Mile building, it moved to an Italian Renaissance Revival palazzo -style building at 390 Fifth Avenue at West 36th Street in the Murray Hill neighborhood. Designed by McKim, Mead & White, with Stanford White as the partner in charge, and built in 1904–1906, the building features bronze balconies and friezes designed by Gorham's staff, and is topped by a copper cornice. From 1924 to 1959, it was home to Russeks department store, and then Spear Securities from 1960, who changed the street level facade. [27] [28] It was designated a New York City landmark in December 1998, but not before the lower floors were significantly altered from their original design. [24] : 99 [26] : 227
In the early 1880s Gorham began casting ecclesiastical items, such as lecterns and in 1889 the cast its first statue, The Skirmisher by Frederick Kohlhagen, located at Gettysburg National Military Park.
To promote its new business of statuary, the company cast a sterling silver statue of Christopher Columbus for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. [29] The statue was designed by famed French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, best known for designing the Statue of Liberty. [29] Since the silver statue was a temporary advertisement, it was melted down after the exhibition. [29] In 1893 a replica of the statue was cast in bronze and donated to the city of Providence by the Elmwood Association. [29] The statue was removed in June 2020. [30]
In 1896, its casting of W. Granville Hastings bust, Judge Carpenter was the first in America using the lost-wax casting method. The foundry went on to become one of the leading art foundries in the United States. [2]
The firm also cast "Lost Cause" Confederate monuments for chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, such as the George Davis Monument (by Francis Herman Packer) in Wilmington, NC in 1910. [31]
A 1928 book published by the Gorham Company, Famous Small Bronzes – A Representative Exhibit Selected from the Works of Noted Contemporary Sculptors, featured full page photographs of sculptures by such notable sculptors as: Chester Beach, Gutzon Borglum, Allan Clark, Cyrus Dallin, Abastenia St. Leger Eberle, Laura Gardin Fraser, Harriet Frishmuth, Emil Fuchs, Karl Gruppe, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Isidore Konti, R. Tait McKenzie, Edith Parsons, Alexander Phimister Proctor, and Mahonri Young. [32] The company also cast monumental works for such figures of the American Renaissance as Augustus Saint Gaudens, Daniel Chester French and James Earle Fraser. Information about the small (lost-wax) Bronze Busts of Thomas Edison (almost 4" tall) is sought by historian Allen Koenigsberg. They were modeled by E. E. Codman and distributed at the Hotel Frontenac by the AEIC on the Convention night of Sep 7, 1910.
The Smithsonian archives of American art list Gorham foundry over 700 times in its inventory of American sculpture. [33]
Lenox Corporation is an American manufacturing company that sells tableware, giftware, and collectible products under the Lenox, Dansk, Reed & Barton, Gorham, and Oneida brands. For most of the 20th century, it was the most prestigious American maker of tableware, as well as making decorative pieces. Several china services were commissioned for the White House. By 2020, it was the last significant manufacturer of bone china in the United States, until the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of the company's only remaining American factory.
The Rhode Island State House, the capitol of the state of Rhode Island, is located at 900 Smith Street just below the crest of Smith Hill, on the border of downtown in Providence. It is a neoclassical building designed by McKim, Mead & White which features the fourth largest structural-stone dome in the world, topped by a gilded statue of "The Independent Man", representing freedom and independence. The building houses the Rhode Island General Assembly – the state House of Representatives is located in the west wing, and the Senate in the east – and the offices of the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and general treasurer of Rhode Island. Other state offices are located in separate buildings on a campus just north of the State House.
Reed & Barton was a prominent American silversmith manufacturer based in the city of Taunton, Massachusetts, operating between 1824 and 2015. Its products include sterling silver and silverplate flatware. The company produced many varieties of britannia and silver products since Henry G. Reed and Charles E. Barton took over the failing works of Isaac Babbitt in Taunton. During the American Civil War, Reed & Barton produced a considerable quantity of weapons for Union Army soldiers and officers.
Speidel is a manufacturer of watchbands and related items based in East Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It was originally founded in Germany by Friedrich Speidel in 1867 as a manufacturer of gold and silver chains. The Speidel Chain Company was formed in its modern state in the United States in 1904. It was known for its "Ratchet-buckle" watchbands, the "Scissors Action Expansion Band", the ladies' "Mignon" watchbands, plus costume jewelry. In the 1930s, Speidel was the first company in the world to introduce ID bracelets. During World War II, the company briefly produced cathode-ray tubes. Speidel experienced a boom in popularity, notably with their invention of the hugely popular expanding strap in the mid-1930s, and in addition to watchbands Speidel produced wristwatches, lighters, writing instruments, small jewelry, and other accessories, before beginning to decline by the end of the century with the struggle to compete with cheaper overseas production, and the boom in quartz watches.
The Stieff Company, Silversmiths, Goldsmiths & Pewterers, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is also known as Kirk-Stieff after 1979.
Columbus is a historic statue in Johnston, Rhode Island. The statue is a bronze cast of a sterling silver statue which was created by Rhode Island's Gorham Manufacturing Company for the 1892 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The original silver statue was not meant for permanent exhibition, but rather as a demonstration of the skills of the Gorham Company, and was later melted down. The bronze cast was dedicated on November 8, 1893, in Columbus Square, in Providence, Rhode Island, United States as a gift from the Elmwood Association to the City of Providence.
The Thomas F. Hoppin House is a historic house at 383 Benefit Street in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. The house was built c. 1853 to a design by Alpheus C. Morse, and is an elaborate local example of an Italianate palazzo-style residence. The Library of Congress called the property "one of the largest and most elegant houses built in Providence in the mid-nineteenth century."
Liberty Arming the Patriot, sometimes called Freedom Arming the Patriot, is a bronze sculpture at Park Place in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, commemorating the participation of the city's citizens in the American Civil War. It was designed by William Granville Hastings and cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company in 1897. Unlike many Civil War memorials, Liberty Arming the Patriot is a dynamic composition, depicting a young farmer setting his plow aside, and reaching to take a sword from a classical female figure clad in breastplate and wielding a pike. The statue is 11 feet (3.4 m) in height, and is mounted on a granite base 10 feet (3.0 m) high and 22 feet (6.7 m) wide. The sculpture was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
Dansk Designs is an American distributor and retailer of cookware, tableware, and other home accessories based in Mount Kisco, New York. As of 2011, the brand was called Dansk and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Lenox Corporation with headquarters located in Bristol, Pennsylvania.
William B. Kerr Co. was a manufacturer of jewelry, flatware and hollow-ware. Established in Newark, New Jersey in 1855, they are listed in the 1915 Edition of the Trademarks of the Jewelry and Kindred Trades as having been located at 144 Orange St.
The Hiker is a bronze statue created by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson. It commemorates the American soldiers who fought in the Spanish–American War, the Boxer Rebellion and the Philippine–American War. The first version of it was made for the University of Minnesota in 1906, but at least 50 copies were made, and were erected widely across the United States.
The Schofield Company (1903–1977) was a Baltimore area silver company, whose best known pattern was Baltimore Rose.
Columbus Square is a historic public square in the Historic Elmwood Neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. Located at the intersection of Elmwood Avenue and Reservoir Avenue, it serves as a gateway to Elmwood from the Reservoir and West End Neighborhoods.
William Christmas Codman was a prominent silver and jewelry designer for Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island.
Mashapaug Pond is the largest freshwater pond in the city of Providence, Rhode Island.
The William B. Durgin Company was a noted American sterling silver manufacturer based in Concord, New Hampshire, and one of the largest flatware and hollowware manufacturers in the United States. Over the period 1905-1924 it was merged into the Gorham Manufacturing Company.
Lewis Edwin Jenks was a noted American silversmith, active in Boston.
889 Broadway, also known as the Gorham Manufacturing Company Building, is a Queen Anne style building located at Broadway and East 19th Street in the Flatiron District of Manhattan in New York City, within the Ladies' Mile Historic District. Built in 1883–1884, it was designed by Edward Hale Kendall.
Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, also known as the Ambrose Burnside Monument, is a monumental equestrian statue in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. The statue, located in the city's Burnside Park, was designed by sculptor Launt Thompson and depicts Ambrose Burnside, an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War who later served as the governor of Rhode Island. Ambrose had died in 1881 and the project to erect a statue in his honor began shortly afterwards. It was dedicated on July 4, 1887 in a large ceremony that included several notable guests of honor, such as General William Tecumseh Sherman, Colonel Robert Hale Ives Goddard, and the governors of both Connecticut and Rhode Island. The monument was originally located in Exchange Place, but it was moved to its current location in the early 1900s. As part of the move, the pedestal was replaced with one designed by William R. Walker.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The original cast was done in sterling silver by the Gorham Manufacturing Co. for the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was meant to be a flashy announcement that the silverware company could also produce monumental statuary.
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