Beech Tree News Network

I’ve never been able to draw, but I’ve always been affected by pictures and paintings, especially those on dishes.  I have a Christmas mug that brings such a feeling of warmth and well-being every time I drink an evening cup of coffee from it.  The scene is a snow-covered village, a single person pulling a sled in the foreground.  I have no idea who painted the scene or even the name of the company who manufactured it.  There is no information stamped on the bottom of the mug.  I do, however, have a small plate left over from my childhood that does have a stamp on the bottom.  The plate has a pastoral scene of a farmer plowing a team of horses, and on the back of the plate is the stamp of the Homer Laughlin China Company.  The plate is a reminder of the first four years of my life with my grandparents, and it takes me back there each time I hold it in my hands.  I was curious about the company, so I did an online search.  The information I gathered comes from the website Homer Laughlin.com.
    In 1871, two brothers from East Liverpool, Ohio, decided to form a partnership in order to sell pottery ware made in their home town.  The brothers were Homer and Shakespeare—wouldn’t you want to hurt your parents—Laughlin.  In 1873, the Laughlin brothers built a plant on the banks of the Ohio River, and started making their own dinner ware.  In 1877 Shakespeare sold out to Homer.  In 1897, Homer sold the business to William Edwin Wells and Louis I. Aaron.  The Wells and Aaron families have continued to own and manage the company through five generations.  The company still exists, but the location changed to across the river in Newell, West Virginia.  They kept the name Homer Laughlin.  (Now that is a legacy.)
    My Homer Laughlin plate was made during the 1950s.  It was one of three patterns, Harvest, Wild Rose and Pastoral, placed inside Mothers Oats boxes.  Although I would never sell it, wouldn’t you think my plate would be worth some money?  Yeah, me too, and we’d both be wrong.  You can find plates like mine all day long for seven to eight dollars on sites like ebay and antique dish collectables.  The reason for the minimal value of these collectables is the volume that was manufactured.  In short, they made a gazillion of everything.
    These dishes have been made in America since 1873.  This company is still around and still thriving.  In 2014, NPR did a story on the company, which employed a thousand people at the time.  The business still operates in big dim factory buildings.  Their employees do everything from attaching handles to green ware to hand painting the lines on the edges of the plates.  It is not uncommon for whole families in the area to be employed there, and the employees give a lot of credit to HLC for putting profits back into the company in order to upgrade their equipment.  One employee remarked that the company is “focused on making product and not being flashy” (NPR.org).
At the time of the NPR story, HLC made 36,000 pieces of pottery every eight-hour shift (NPR.org).  That’s a lot of dishes, but the company has always turned out a lot of dishes.  In 1917, HLC sold 16.7 million dishes to one company—Woolworth (Homer Laughlin.com).  You know that brightly-colored Fiesta Ware everybody is so crazy about?  They make that too.
    That’s why my plate isn’t worth a lot of money.  But you know what?  I don’t mind.  Homer Laughlin China Company is an American company, making a lasting American product, and that makes me and a lot of people happy.  It’s amazing what you can do when you focus on product, not flash.