Placement and Production of Alphabets

Alphabets were either printed or molded, generally encircling the rims of plates.  The rims were often further decorated with painted lines or molded motifs.  British manufacturers produced both molded and printed alphabets on their vessels, although molded alphabets were present in quantities five times greater than printed alphabets in the database sample.  Molded rim alphabets also began production earlier than printed rim alphabets, although they continued to be made throughout the entire span of British production.  The mean beginning and end production dates for British molded alphabets was 1868 to 1894, while printed alphabets that encircled the plate rim had mean beginning and end dates of 1881 to 1895 (Table 2).  

Table 2.  Dating Details for Alphabets on British Alphabet Plates

Some ABC ware plates from the 1870s to 1890s followed design elements of the Aesthetic Movement.  In alphabet plates influenced by this movement, the “central” design was enclosed in a frame or box, either centrally located or placed asymmetrically to one side of the plate.  The printed alphabet letters would be arranged across the top, sides and bottom of the box or along one side of the plate (see the Post-Colonial Ceramics entry for Aesthetic Period in Printed Underglaze Earthenwares for a more complete discussion of this style of decoration).  They were often printed in brown on ivory-dyed ceramic bodies and highlighted with enameled painting.  This design style in ABC wares was used almost exclusively by the Staffordshire firm of Brownhills Pottery Company, in business between 1872 and 1896 (Godden 1964:111).  Mean beginning and end production dates for these asymmetrically placed alphabets were 1884 to 1895.ftn4  Many of these plates were produced by Brownhills Pottery Company in series like “Nations of the World”, “Wild Animals” and “Bible Pictures”.

Almost without exception, American-made plates depicted printed alphabets – of 69 American examples, only two vessels, produced by Smith Phillips China Company (1901-1931) of East Liverpool, Ohio contained molded alphabets.

Production and Design of Central Motifs

There were two primary methods of producing central designs:  underglaze printing and lithographic decals.  Printed designs were generally produced in one color under the glaze, with many designs printed in black.ftn5  In the database sample, central scenes on British vessels were almost always underglaze printed (Table 3). 

Table 3. Central Designs on American and British Plates

Lithographic decals, introduced in the 1890s, replaced underglaze printed designs by around 1905 (Venable et al. 2000:120).  While decals allowed the production of more detailed designs and a greater range of colors, they were prone to damage by cutlery.  With the exception of one airbrush stenciled example, American manufacturers used decals exclusively to create central scenes.  A large factor in the difference between British and American central design production techniques can be accounted for by the time frames in which the two locales were producing ABC plates.  The use of lithographic decals began in the 1890s, when British production of ABC wares was winding down.  American manufacturers, concentrated in New Jersey, Ohio and West Virginia, appear to have begun producing ABC wares right about the time that decals became available.

Underglaze printed designs produced by British manufacturers were often filled in with colored enamels (pink, green, yellow, red, orange, brown and blue) hand-applied over the final lead glazing.  Individual vessels often contained three or four colors, filled in as the enameller chose.ftn6 There seemed to be no appreciable dating difference in whether or not enameling was used (Table 4), and individual firms often made both enameled and non-enameled ABC wares.  Enameling was not used on any of the American-made vessels in the database.

Table 4.  Enameling on Printed British ABC Plates

Central designs fell into a number of categories, but three predominated in the database:  children’s activities, animals and adult activities.  The category of children’s activities included scenes of children engaged in play, work or sports.  No adults are present in these scenes.  Scenes in the adult activities category can include children, but the focus is on adult activities such as sports, work, farming or the military.  The animal category depicts scenes that contain animals – no humans appear. 

Looking at the marked British vessels in the database, the children and adult activities categories appear at about the same time, with children’s activities appearing and disappearing in popularity just a few years earlier than the adult activities (Table 5).  Animal-themed designs were produced primarily in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.  Several other categories are worthy of note.  Religious themes were most commonly produced between 1870 and 1890.  Brownhills Pottery Company produced several series of ABC plates based on fictional characters, such as Robinson Crusoe and Red Riding Hood, as well as a Nursery Tales series.  

Table 5.  British Central Designs

American-made plates depicted scenes in only three categories: children’s activities, animals and stories and rhymes. Sample sizes were very limited, but children’s activities showed a mean beginning and end production span of 1899 to 1924.  Animal designs showed a range from 1902 to 1926, while characters or scenes from fictional stories or nursery rhymes showed a range from 1916 to 1930.

If the central motif was taken from an identifiable printed source, the source publication date can be used as a terminus post quem for the production of the ABC ware.  Children’s books published in the second half of the nineteenth century appear to have been most often used as source materials for designs.  Davida and Irving Shipkowitz’s The ABCs of ABC Ware (2002) is a good reference book for identifying and dating printed sources used in ABC wares.

Description

Fabric and Ware Type
Ceramic ABC wares were produced in England, the United States and Germany.  The production of ABC wares in the United States began in the late nineteenth century, centered in West Virginia and East Liverpool, Ohio (Fendelman and Rosson 2010).  German wares began production around the turn of the twentieth century (Lindsay and Lindsay n.d.).

Ceramic ABC wares were produced in a variety of pastes/fabrics.  Staffordshire wares were most often white-bodied earthenware.  German ABC wares were produced in hard paste porcelain, characterized by a whiter and more highly vitrified paste than white earthenware. 

ABC wares also appear in glass, sheet iron plated with tin, aluminum (first dating from the 1920s), and plastic (Lindsay and Lindsay 1998:181).

Glaze
Ceramic ABC wares most commonly have a clear lead glaze.

Additional Decoration
Additional decorative techniques were sometimes used to supplement printed and molded decorations on ABC wares.  Painted or lustered bands could encircle a molded rim.  Luster was sometimes used to paint central designs in simple motifs, like houses.  Gilt bands or highlights were common on German wares (Lindsay and Lindsay 1998).

Form
Plates and mugs were the most common vessel forms for ABC wares, although bowls, cups and saucers were also produced.  Since these wares were intended for children, they are typically small; plates generally range in diameter from 4 to 8½”, although a few plates with diameters of 9.75” have been recorded.  In the sample of 425 marked plates, 74% fell between 6 and 8” in diameter.  Mugs usually ranged between 2.5 to 3” tall.

Alphabet plates of the first several decades of the twentieth century changed in shape.  They became sturdier and thicker in cross-section, and looked more like shallow, straight-sided bowls than typical plates.  Alphabets would be printed along the flat, thick rim of the plate or along the vessel’s exterior side.