The Hall China Company

The visitor's entrance at The Hall China Company.

The Hall China Company was founded by Robert Hall in East Liverpool, Ohio in August 1903 following the dissolution of the two-year old East Liverpool Potteries Company. He began making dinnerware and toilet seats, but soon found that institutional ware such as bedpans, chamber pots and pitchers was more profitable.

Robert Hall died just a year after launching the company. One of his eight children, Robert Taggart Hall, took over the company and almost immediately began developments to introduce the single-fire process, which had first been used centuries earlier by Chinese potters during their Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). His dream was to change from the two-firing manufacturing method; one firing to harden the ware and a second firing to set the glaze to the ware. Ware produced in this manner was semi-porous and prone to crazing because the glaze does not firmly bond to the body of the piece and the two expand and contract at different rates, eventually causing fragmentation of the glaze. With the help of staff chemists and ceramic engineers, Hall experimented from 1904 until 1911, when he and his staff came up with a glaze recipe that worked. The new process fused together the white body, color and glaze when it was fired at a temperature of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The process used a single-firing that allowed the glaze to penetrate the unfired body, creating a lead-free, craze-proof finish which was strong, non-porous, very dense, did not absorb moisture, and held heat well.

Inadvertently, Hall China became the first pottery in the world to produce ware which was completely lead-free. This was due not to particular environmental or health concerns, but due to the fact that the lead compounds would not work in the very high temperatures Hall China was fired at.

The new glazes allowed the creation of brilliant colors never before seen on American china. Hall china expert Harvey Duke lists no fewer than 47 colors developed for the new process, which allowed for rapid expansion of the company and its product selections at the onset of World War I. After tepid sales of its new housewares lines in the 1910s, the company tried designing and selling decorated teapots. Hall China became the largest producer of these products in the world. The teapot business was so successful that the company decided to expand it from the original three designs to a plethora of new shapes and colors. In the 1940s the teapot business began to dwindle. By the 1960s, probably due to the increased preference for coffee by the buying public, teapot sales had fallen to insignificance.

In the mid-1920s, the directors of Hall China made a decision to associate with the Jewel Tea Company to produce an exclusive line of dinnerware for them. Jewel started using Hall teapots as premiums, and then expanded the promotion to include its own line of distinctive dinnerware and kitchenware. New pieces were introduced by Hall China for Jewel until 1980.

Hall China breakfast set including waffle iron, batter bowl, syrup jug, coffee cup with saucer (waffle iron manufactured by ElectraHot of Minneapolis, MN with Hall China insert)

In the 1930s, refrigerators became more common and so, a new market was created: refrigerator-ware. Hall produced china pieces for all of the major manufacturers, including Hotpoint, General Electric, Westinghouse and Montgomery Ward. Pieces produced were pitchers, covered or not, china boxes for leftovers, butter and cheese dishes. The Hall pieces either came with the appliance or were offered as accessories to be purchased later.

During the mid-20th century Hall China produced a number of renowned designs including the Ball and Donut jugs and the Nautilus, Donut and Aladdin teapots.

Hall China attracted talented designers, with examples being Eva Zeisel's popular "Century" dinnerware design and Donald Schreckengost's cookie jars shaped like owls, casserole dishes shaped like ducks, and teapots shaped like Ronald Reagan and Sherlock Holmes.

Hall China continues in production today. The company has re-issued many of its earlier designs, including some which had previously been considered rare, such as the Airflow and Rhythm teapots, the Donut and Streamline jugs, and some of the water servers from the refrigerator-ware lines. To allay concerns from collectors, the re-issued products are marked differently and use different colors.

The manufacture of Hall China begins with a mixture of flint, feldspar and several different clays. These ingredients are mixed together with water to form a slip. The filtered slip is then pumped into presses to remove the water and leaving clay cakes.

The cakes are processed through a pug mill to remove air and sent to the jiggerman on a potter's wheel to produce the flat pieces such as plates and bowls. For items such as teapots, the cakes have water added to them and the resulting slip is poured into a mold and moved through the glazing and firing processes. When completed, the pieces are decorated by hand-painting, decals or printing.

The retailing floor at The Hall Closet, the company's factory outlet store.

Hall China celebrated its 100th birthday in 2003 with the publication of A Centennial History of the Hall China Company by Catherine S. Vodrey.

References

• Margaret and Kenn Whitmyer, The Collectors Encyclopedia of Hall China, Schroeder Publishing Co, Inc., 1994

External links

• Museum Of Ceramics
• Hall China Company Official Site
• Hall China Collectors Home Page