[Newspaper]
Publication: Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Brooklyn, NY, United States
vol. 48, no. 182, p. 8, col. 1-3
OUR INDUSTRIAL CENTER
Variety as Well as Volume Its Characteristic.
Pottery as an Illustration—Twelve Establishments Where the Ceramic Art Which Flourished Among the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans Centuries Ago Is Practiced in Brooklyn To-day.
It is a characteristic feature of the manufacturing industrial life of Brooklyn that It has great variety. It is not all of one kind. The industries are many, and they are as distinctive as they are numerous. In the new world, as in the old, there are communities which are identified with one industry only, which owe their origin to that industry and which depend for their existence upon the same. Such are sometimes extremely prosperous communities, great and wealthy cities. Lyons is famous for its silk, Sevres for its porcelain, Biringham for its iron work, Manchester for its cotton, and so of some of the cities of our own Union.
The drawback to such a state of things is that there is too much dependence upon ono branch of industry—so much so that when the industry le affected the whole community is affected. The failure of a trade or industry moans the ruin of the place, for the time at least; and, unless new life comes with some now industry, it moans death. Brooklyn is in no such condition of dependence, and, therefore, she is in danger of no such collapse.
Young, too, as Brooklyn is, she has won distinction in some of the very oldest departments of industry. Of those prominent mention must be made of her numerous potteries. Of these she can boast of no fewer than twelve separate establishments—all well occupied in the different departments of the ceramic art. They are Francis Roos & Son, 58 North Eleventh street; Frederick Schaeffer, 95 Clay street; Henry Bieg, 66 Wallabout; J. J. Declark, 57 Walton street; Charles Graham, 110 Metropolitan avenue; Faience Manufacturing Company of Now York, 98 West street; James L. Jansen, 150 Greene avenue; Alexander Machutta, 212 Union street; B. Prinz & Son, 142 Third avenue; Shock & Meg, Smith street, corner of Bash; Cornelius Vanpel, 388 Wallabout, and the Union Porcelain Works, 800 Eckford street. In these different works may be seen the potter's task in almost all its phases; and the productions of the same range from the coarsest stoneware, such as jugs, jars, crocks, flower pots, Umbrella stands, etc., up to the higher forms, such as kitchen utensils, line dishes for the dinner and tea table, as well as various kinds of ornaments for the parlor and dressing room.
Before giving more minute details of the Brooklyn works, it may be of some service to the reader to recall a few fasts connected with the history of pottery, and in a brief way indicate its growth and the order of its development. The art, it is hardly necessary to Bay Is a very ancient one; and among all the earlier races who have made any figure in history, it was more or less extensively practiced. In both its coarser and less pretentious forms, as well as in the higher and ornamental, it was known and practiced by the ancient Egyptians. They made bricks for building purposes; and they made numerous articles for domestic use. Some of the lesser pyramids wore built of brick Vases of baked earthenware, for culinary and other purposes, and urns of the same material, covered with a thick delicious glaze of blue, green, white, purple and yellow, were made in the Nile Valley and exported to all the neighboring countries. The Egyptians had the potter's lathe or wheel, moulds for stamping, and metal tools of various kinds. Specimens of their skill exist in plentiful quantities, and are to be seen in all the great museums of art. To the rougher kind of work slaves and captives wore put; and Bible readers will remember how Hebrews were compelled to labor in the brick fields. Brick making was known and practiced in the contemporary empires of Assyria and Babylon, 2,000 years before Christ. The glazed brick, in the form of cylinders, hexagonal prisms and such like, was used for what we would call book purposes, writings being impressed upon them. The art took a higher form among the Greeks. Bricks were not extensively used by them, but they made all kinds of useful and fancy articles of sun dried clay, of terra cotta and of glazed ware. Greek vases attained a high order of excellence, and revealed all the fine artistic quality of the Greek mind. In the later days of Grecian greatness—In the days which followed the conquests of Alexander, and before clay began, to give way to metal—the pottery was molded, sometimes glazed entirely black, and sometimes variegated with opaque white figures and ornaments. Roman pottery may be considered a sort of inheritance from the Greeks. although It has to be admitted that the Etruscans, at a very early period, worked independently of the Greeks. Later the Etruscans imitated the Greeks. An improved kind of pottery was developed at Arrezo or Arratium and was called Arratine; and, in the first Christian Century it was produced extensively at Capua and Cumae, as well as at Arrezo. It is supposed to have been the fruit of an attempt to imitate chased cups, in gold and silver, which had become common in Italy. The vases of this later order were of a bright red, or black, color, covered with a lustrous delicious glaze. The ornaments were produced by mould, or by placing bas reliefs, taken from moulds, on the vases. It was called Lamian ware. Under the twelve Caesars it deteriorated, and by the time of the Antonfues it had given place to a red ware, glazed with red lead and copper. There is no reason to doubt that the native British had some knowledge of pottery. Urns and vases have been found, supposed to date back to the first Christian Century. But there is abundant evidence that it took a new form and acquired a new impetus after the advent of the Romans.
Pottery was known to the Northern nations—to the Celts and Scandinavians—long before the Roman conquests of Gaul and Britain. As far back as the Stone and Bronze periods large and small vases were in use; and they are found to-day among the cromlechs, the tumuli and graves of the Norsemen. The material is coarse, and bears evidence of having been feebly burned with flowers made of hay, dried ferns and other such vegetable products. Pottery was known in India, in China, in Japan in times far remote; and in the soil of Mexico and along the Pacific slope abundant evidence has been found that the art was not unknown to the more advanced tribes of the American aborigines. The Mexican and Peruvian wares never reached the excellence of glazing, but in modeling the old Peruvian wares rival the best specimens of European art. The Fijis had come to a knowledge of pottery at an early time, and they glazed with the resin of a tree. It is suspected, however, that this knowledge was derived from Europe. It is somewhat curious to note that although the potter's art is mentioned in scripture very few specimens of Hebrew wares have been found.
Much of the beauty of the ceramic art is dependent upon the glazed or enameled surface of the wares. The history of the higher grades of the art is the history of this glaze. In other words the art has approached perfection very much as the secret of glazing has been thoroughly mastered. The knowledge of glazes originally acquired by the Egyptians and Assyrians was still a possession when the Romans governed Alexandria, and from the potters of that city the secret was obtained by the Persians, the Moors and the Arabs. There is proof that faience's and enameled bricks wore in use among these peoples in the Twelfth Century, and among the Hindus a. century or a century and a half later. For some centuries glazing seems to have been a lost art in Europe. In the general decay and ruin which overtook the old Roman empire, this special knowledge had perished. In the early years of the Eighth Century, the secret was carried by the Moore into Spain. Early in the Twelfth Century the knowledge of glazing or enameling had come into the possession of the Italians, no doubt from Spanish sources. From Italy, where it was soon turned to excellent account, it found its way into France, and flourished under the patronage of Catharine de Medicis, through the persevering labors and brilliant discoveries of Bernard Palissy, the grand old Huguenot, who escaped the massacre of St. Bartholomew, only to be sentenced to death by burning, and who, although saved from so horrible a fate, was permanently cut off from his labors and allowed to rot in the Bastille. It is hardly possible to overestimate the value of Palissy's labors. By the discovery of a special kind of paste or enamel, as well as by his general taste and skill in the other departments of his trade, he raised the potter's art to an eminence never formerly known. In his hands pottery took on the most beautiful adornments, both as to form and color; and his tiles, his rustic pieces, his basins, his stands, his statuettes, which in his own time were in universal demand. command in our own day, when proved to be genuine, enormous prices. All over the effort was to improve the glazing. In Germany, In Holland, in Venice, in France, in England, very considerable progress bad been made by the time we reach the Sixteenth Century. By and by Holland took the lead with her delft. Excellent work was also done at Nuremberg, In Germany. It was not till after the Revolution of 1688 that British work acquired real prominence. Rivalry was introduced into the business by the arrival of some Dutch manufacturers in the train of William of Orange, and rapid strides were thenceforth made toward a higher grade of work by Astbury, by Booth, and finally by the Wedgewoods. In 1759 Josiah Wedgewood was using at Burslem very superior clays, distancing all domestic competitors and rivaling in several departments the best foreign goods; and a little later Flaxman was in his service, adorning his productions with has reliefs and painted figures. Later still he was gilding extensively and printing with copper plates.
The highest quality of goods produced by ,the potter are those which pass under the title of china ware or porcelain. Both names are a little general. Commonly speaking, all white ware used for table purposes, as well as all fancy or ornamental ware of the bettor sort, is called porcelain or china ware. More strictly speaking the terms are applied only to the very highest kind of manufactured earthenware. Porcelain la derived from an obscure Portuguese word signifying a shell, and the name was given to a class of goods which were first imported from China, and mainly because they were translucent and bad a shell like appearance internally when hold up to the light. Of this porcelain proper there are two kinds—the hard, and the soft or tender, as it is also called. The hard is composed of a clay containing silica, which is infusible and preserves its whiteness in a strong heat, and of a flux containing silica and lime. The glaze of this ware is earthy, and admits of no metallic substance or alkali. This ware is semi transparent or translucent. The soft or tender porcelain consists of a vitreous frit, which is rendered opaque by the mixture of a calcareous clay, and Is glazed with artificial glass, Into the composition of which silica, alkalies ant lead outer. This latter kind of porcelain is sometimes left unglazed. In this state the biscuit, as it is called, when baked, has the appearance of white marble. Unglazed porcelain is made use of for purposes of sculpture. The hard or translucent porcelain is the more valuable. This fine article, manufactured by the Chinese tribes 185, B. C., was first imported from China by the Dutch In 1644. It was soon in great demand, and various attempts were made to discover the secret of its manufacture. The attempt, although they led to improvement, were long unsuccessful in their main object. By and by, in 1709, a white porcelain was produced at Meissen. near Dresden, and the porcelain works which remain were established by royal authority. The secret found its way to Vienna In 1720, where an establishment, which also remains, was founded under sanction of the Imperial government. The example was followed at St. Petersburg, at Berlin, at Munich, in various parts of France, such as Chantilly, Vilirol, Orleans, Limoges and Sevres; in Italy, in Spain, and in England. Works were established at Chelsea before the close of the Seventeenth Century. In 1748 they wore removed to Derby. About the same time an establishment was set up at Worcester by Dr. Well. Later the Staffordshire potteries and the names of Minton and others have become famous the world over. In the East China and Japan take the lead in the manufacture of porcelain. In Europe the principal manufactories are at Sevres, at Dresden, and at Worcester; and it might be safe to indicate the excellency of the goods produced by the order named. The superiority of Sevres china to all other is admitted. The second place may be left undetermined as between Royal Dresden and Royal Worcester. Of these three, however, it is proper to state that each has its specialty, and that each in its own line is at the head. Work of the very highest kind is done also at the Potteries in Staffordshire, a district covering about forty-eight square miles, with over 200 kilns at work, and where are employed more than 100,000 operatives. It is proper to stain here that the best wares of China and Japan are of hard porcelain, as are also all the productions of Sevres and Limoges in France, and of Meissen and Berlin in Germany. Hard porcelain has been made at various times and at different places in England; but it is not a feature of English manufacture. There are those, it should also be stated, who will allow the name porcelain or China ware to be given only to that which is known as hard.
Pottery in America is one of the youngest of our industries. In its coarser forms, of course, it has long been a familiar industry in certain parts of the country. It was not until toward the close of the first quarter of the present century that any highly ambitious efforts were made in the direction of first class pottery. There were establishments in Vermont, in Philadelphia, at Egg Harbor, N. J.; at Flushing, at New York and elsewhere; and at some of these vigorous but unsuccessful attempts were made to produce hard porcelain goods. In later times the area of manufacturing has greatly widened and thriving establishments have for some years existed at Trenton, N.J.; at East Liverpool, 0.; at Steubenville, 0: at Cambridge, Mass., at Philadelphia, Pa.; at Beaver Falls, Pa.; at Pittsburg, Pa.; at Phoenixville, Pa.; at Peoria, ill.; at Brooklyn, N. Y., and elsewhere. So far as articles of real utility are concerned, the American industry leaves little to be desired, and in some of the finer or more fancy departments the general excellence of the best English goods is closely approached. The long reign of Protection has afforded American manufacturers in this line au immense opportunity; and it would be as untruthful as it would be unkind to say that they had not taken advantage of it. There is no reason, indeed, why some of our articles or utility—dinner ware, for example, stone ware filters, jugs and jars, flower pots and porcelained metal goods—should not now lake their chances in the free markets of the world. American goods, like the English, belong as a rule to the class characterized as soft. In some of the manufactories, however, a superior hard ware is produced, known as semi-porcelain, and one of the East Liverpool manufacturers claims a novelty which he calls "vitreous translucent china."
Of the Brooklyn manufacturers of earthen ware goods, who, as we have seen, are somewhat numerous, it is not necessary to write in detail. It is, and ought to be, a source of gratification to every Brooklynite to know that an industry which boasts of such antiquity which has so grand a history, which is associated with so many triumphs and with so many illustrious names, which opens up so many possibilities and affords so much scope for genius and culture and good taste, is thriving in the community and having a promising future before it. Some of the establishments are smaller; some of them are larger. Some of them make a specialty of one kind of goods, some of another. In some the potter's work is seen in its simpler and rougher aspects, in others it is seen in its more complex features and in its more elaborate and more beautiful results. After all there is no great variety in the art of pottery in its real essential features—the process being more or less the same in every establishment and in the production of every kind of goods, and of the establishments devoted to this particular business, making allowance for difference of bulk, difference of number of kilns, difference of number of persons employed, it might be perfectly safe to say ex ono disce omnes.
Of the manufactories named in the earliest part of this article, some of them are devoted solely such as that of Francis Roos & Son—to the manufacture of common earthenware; glazed flower pots, for example, tastefully decorated with figures or flowers or plants, and umbrella stands similarly decorated. Others, again, are devoted to the manufacturing of kitchen utensils, dishes of all kinds for the table, some of them of a coarser, some of a rarer and more costly sort. The one establishment which in Brooklyn overtops all the others, and which may, without any impropriety be taken as the representative establishment of the kind in the city, is that known as the Union Porcelain Works, at Greenpoint. This establishment has rather an interesting history; and the temptation to take it as an example is the greater that it illustrates the character of the institution and its work. As far back as 1854 the site of the present works was covered by a small pottery, with one kiln, and was devoted to the manufacturing of door knobs and such articles. It was run by a German family, who proved unsuccessful. The pottery passed into the bands of a stock company, who obtained a large loan from Mr. Thomas Smith, then a prosperous builder in New York city. The war came, and the stock company proved be as unsuccessful as the German family, Mr. Smith had the pottery as payment of the debt. Of what use to put it was the question. Going in Europe in 1863, he visited the famous works at Sevres, France, and the English potteries in the valley of the Trent, and, as a result of what he saw, he came to the conclusion that he would put the Greenpoint factory in order, and commence the manufacture of hard porcelain. China pottery is based upon the proper knowledge of the different kinds of clay. All clays, from the coarsest to the finest, are, when properly prepared, capable of receiving impressions and of being worked or moulded into certain forms. It is the business of the potter to give to the clay such form or impression and to make it permanent. The finer the clay, other things being equal, the finer the article made out of the clay. The clay being found, the first process is the washing. Properly washed and reduced to a smooth pulp, and in some cases mixed with a certain amount of silica, so as to give it firmness, it is strained and purified by passing through sieves, then boiled to throw off the moisture, when it has assumed a doughy consistency and is ready for taking shape at the hands of the potter. There are three processes by which the required shape is given to the clay thus prepared. These are named throwing, pressing and casting. Throwing is the most ancient process, and is performed by the potter's wheel or lathe, which has quite an improved character at the Union works, the old wheel having given place to machine power. capable of being put off and on at pleasure, a number of discs being arranged on long tables. The operator dashes the lump of clay upon the revolving disc, when, with one hand or finger or thumb in the mass, he gives the first rude form to the vessel, afterward with a piece of horn, shell or porcelain pressing the profile of the vessel, giving it the proper shape and removing all inequalities. It is then placed upon a board and taken to a hot room to dry. When dried it is subjected to the process of turning. The pressing and casting processes are simply different names of moulding. The mould is placed upon the disc and the clay fed from within.
The next process is the converting of the shaped clay into what is called biscuit. This is done by placing the articles in rows in what are called seggars, which are piled layer upon layer in the kilns, each of which, as a rule, is heated by eight furnaces. The firing lasts from forty to forty-two hours. When cooled the articles are ready to be glazed or ornamented, or both, as may be intended. The glazes are variously made, the composition being too complicated to give in a general description or review. As the articles are of fine material and intended for decoration the glazing is finer in proportion. When glazed and printed, if printing is part of the arrangement, the ware is again put in seggars and dried. In some cases the gilding or decoration is done by dipping. In other cases it is done by the brush. The hand burnishing completes the process. The superior character of Chinas porcelain is due to the character of the fine clay or kaolin, and of the silex, which, when baked, does not fuse at a temperature as high as 140 degrees of the pyrometer, and the glaze of which is incapable of being cut with a penknife. Mr. Smith gets his kaolin mainly from Pennsylvania. His silica he obtains from his own quarry at Branchville, Conn. The best French clay is got near Sevres, and the best English in Cornwall.
