| The Homer Laughlin China Company was founded in 1873 inEast Liverpool, Ohio with a $5,000 start-up fund provided by the fathersof East Liverpool. The two Laughlin brothers, Homer and Shakespeare,accepted the offer in 1873 and work on the pottery began in the fall of the same yearand the very first white-ware came out of the kilns of the Ohio ValleyPottery in October of 1874. The city fathers walked up the River Road to see the new ware.When they saw the piles of misshapen ware, including cups with handlesthat had fallen off, they were convinced they had made a mistake in giving $5000 tothe Laughlin brothers. Homer was quoted as saying that he too regretted evertaking the money from the city for the pottery. Prior to building the new Ohio Valley Pottery, the LaughlinBrothers had been selling yellow ware from the East Liverpool area fromabout 1868. The brothers traveled to New York State and several other areas inthe east to sell the East Liverpool area ware. By 1872 and into 1873, thebrothers were in New York City with their own dinnerware import business. TheLaughlin brothers are listed in the 1872-1873 New York City Business Directory with botha business and a resident address. This proven information makesit impossible for the brothers to have a pottery in the East Liverpool area in 1871.My conclusion is that they formed a partnership in 1870 or 1871 for their chinaimport business.
 The Laughlin Brothers were not defeated by the disastrousware from the first firing, in fact they were even more determined to makea quality ware and by 1876 the Laughlin Brothers Ohio Valley Pottery whiteware won the prize at the Philadelphia Exposition. At this particular time,the American consumer would not buy anything but English made ware. Even the catalogcompanies such as Sears stated in their catalog pages that "American-made warewas inferior to the English-made ware." This determination of the Americanhousewife to buy only English made ware caused many American potteries to usebackstamps that appeared to be English to either encourage or deceivethe American consumer to buy American ware. After the Laughlin brotherswon at the 1876 Philadelphia Exhibition, Homer Laughlin decided that he would alwaysbe proud of his white ware and set about to design a backstamp that wouldshow that it was American made. Homer Laughlin´s now famous Eagleover the Lion backstamp was used from about 1877 until circa 1902 or 1904.The exact date that the backstamp was retired is not known.
  Most of the white ironstone ware made in the late 1800sand early 1900s in this country was copies of English ware. Standard shapeswere used by most of the potteries in this country with only slight variationsfrom pottery to pottery. Keep in mind that most of the people whoworked in the potteries had come from England and their methods of work, pricing and even the shapeof the ware quite naturally had the English influence. Ironstone, both Americanand English have become very desirable to collectors over the last few yearsand prices have risen accordingly. Simply stated, Ironstone currentlyis a very hot collectible.
Ironstone is described as hard earthenware and was madeas a utilitarian ware to stand up to hard use. Ironstone was also calledwhite granite; granite is heavy, bulky and substantial. Plain white ironstone hadits beginning in England about 1840 and from 1840 to 1870, many different embossed decorationswere used according to Jean Weatherbee, this country´s leadingauthority on ironstone. Mrs. Weatherbee is the author of White Ironstone; A CollectorsGuide published by Antique Trader Books 1996.
 The ware that was being made in the East Liverpool area in 1840 was Rockingham and Yellow ware from local clay. When theseclays were fired, the ware they produced could be beige/buff to yellow color. Rockingham generally has a mottled brown or mottled glaze. Even though William Bloor produced whiteware as early as 1860, and the Knowles, Taylor and Knowles Pottery was making whiteware as early as 1872, it was the Laughlin Brothers Ohio ValleyPottery in East Liverpool, Ohio that was first established in 1873 for the solepurpose of producing white ware.
From the early resource materials that I found concerning"the brother´s little pottery", it was natural to assume the first LaughlinBrothers pottery on the River Road to be small. It was not until I found a drawingof the Ohio Valley Pottery dated 1877 that I realized that it was "no small pottery"as had been described. On pages 6 and 7 of Homer Laughlin China 1940s-1950sthe 1877 drawing of the pottery is shown and surrounding the picture of the potteryare many examples of Ohio Valley Pottery´s white ware. The railway runsin front of the pottery building closest to the River Road and the potteryis built towards the river´s bank. Shakespeare Laughlin withdrew from the pottery in 1877"by mutual consent".
  In 1886 to 1889, Homer Laughlin experimented with makinga true porcelain ware. According to newspaper reports, the chinawas successful but Mr. Laughlin did not pursue china making after 1889 and manufacturedonly earthenware. The chinaware made during this brief period is marked withthe Horseshoe using either a stamp or an impressed mark.
In the early 1890s Homer Laughlin was already interestedin moving to California (according to correspondence found in old files) andmade several trips to Los Angeles. Mr. Laughlin incorporated the potteryin 1896 and sold the business in 1897 to the Aarons and Wells families. The Wellsand Aarons families continue to direct the business of the now famous Homer LaughlinChina Company. | 
