Dickinson Clay Products Company
Seeing a need for winter work at the Dickinson Clay Products Company, Howard Lewis started pottery production in 1934 to keep the plant running year round. In 1935 he was joined by Charles Grantier who had trained under Margaret Cable at the University of North Dakota and who was very familiar with the properties of North Dakota Clay. The pottery produced by this company was known as Dickota, usually scratched or incised on the bottom of the pottery pieces. In addition a gold and silver sticker with the Dickota name was placed on some items
Margaret Cable worked at Dickinson Clay Products in the summer of 1936 designing a dinnerware set which became known as "Cableware". Laura Taylor, another UND student also worked for the company for a short time.
Some of the items made by the company include vases, advertising ashtrays, pitchers, mugs, book ends, curtain shade pulls, animal figurines, cookie jars, salt and pepper shakers, sugars and creamers and tea pots. In addition to glazed clay products, Dickota Badlands pieces were produced. This process was brought to Dickota by Howard Lewis who learned the technique while working at Nilok. It consisted of several colors of clay swirled together in one product. (Dickota Pottery by Arley and Bonnie Olson)
Another popular item was the ball water pitcher and glasses patterned after Cambridge Glass. This led to legal problems for the company as Cambridge held the patent for the pitcher shape. Those legal problems and other economic issues led to the closing of the pottery operation in 1937.
Read more about this topic: North Dakota Pottery
Famous quotes containing the words dickinson, clay, products and/or company:
“There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry.”
—Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
“When Nature was shaping him, clay was not granted
For making so full-sized a man as she wanted,
So, to fill out her model, a little she spared
From some finer-grained stuff for a woman prepared,
And she could not have hit a more excellent plan
For making him fully and perfectly man.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the land, and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to another planet, from seaweed to a sailor’s yarn, or a fish story. In this element the animal and vegetable kingdoms meet and are strangely mingled.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“People who abhor solitude may abhor company almost as much.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)