Pitcher

The mid-nineteenth century saw the advent of porcelain manufacturing on a large industrial scale. The industry centered primarily in Greenpoint (Brooklyn), New York, and Trenton, New Jersey, and soon East Liverpool, Ohio, became significant producer. The output of these firms, which included Charles Cartlidge & Company, William Bloor, and the Union Porcelain Works, were useful wares, everything from door and cabinet hardware (knobs and push plates) to sturdy pitchers for use in the proliferating ale and porter houses. Staffed primarily by the influx of skilled labor beginning in the late 1840s, with immigrant craftsmen and designers seeking more profitable livelihood in the United States, the firms embraced the developed technologies and popular patterns from abroad. Typically, whether of glazed porcelain or unglazed parian porcelain, the forms were slip-cast and thereby made in multiples, with relief-molded designs in a variety of naturalistic patterns. Some had direct prototypes in their transatlantic sources; others were unique to North America, often embracing native flora.