Downton Abbey Mixing Bowls - Just Like Mrs. Patmore's!

I bought two bowls from Laurel House Antiques.  The way they nest I think it was a set of three originally. Does this lessen the value? 

These Mason Cash bowls haven't changed  much since their introduction in 1901

You have two classic Cane patterned mixing bowls by the English pottery company Mason Cash of Church Gresley, Derbyshire.   They made these bowls in a variety of sizes so they are not found in conventional “sets”.  I would estimate the values on these bowls individually. 

Like its neighbor, the better-known Staffordshire, Derbyshire was home to a number of potteries dating to the 18th century.  In his 1878 book The Ceramic Art of Great Britain from Prehistoric Times Down to the Present Day, author Llewllynn Frederick William Jewitt describes Derbyshire pottery as “buff or yellow” and declares, “The local clay from which these goods are produced is peculiar to this district, and is not found precisely the same anywhere else.”

Beginning about 1813, Mason pottery made household goods, as did fellow Derbyshire Watt and Cash.   In 1901, Thomas Cash, son of Watt and Cash founder William, purchased Mason and combined the two names. 

Daisy, Mrs. Patmore and Lady Sybil bake a cake - and use their Mason Cash mixing bowls!

Mason and Cash have produced their “cane” patterned bowls almost without change since 1901.  The zig-zagged rim and the textured exterior of the bowl provide solid one-handed grip and the narrow foot provides stability.  If you look at kitchen scenes from any British drama you’ll see cooks – including Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Patmore – using these bowls.  As far as I can tell, they’ve never been out of production. 

Mason and Cash currently make these bowls in 10 sizes ranging in diameter from 12 to 35 centimeters so I suppose having two rather than three nesting bowls does not lessen the value.  In good condition, these vintage bowls sell in the $25 to $70 range.  You can buy these bowls new for about the same price. 

(Mason and Cash have expanded their line of wares.  They have a line specifically for pets!)

Harvey Girls and Navajo Trading Posts

My mother-in-law's mother Hazel was a Harvey Girl in Arizona. I'm not certain of the exact time period, but she started in Kansas City and then went to Ash Fork Arizona. My mother in law was born in 1915, and her mother was married in 1912. Harvey Girls couldn't work and be married so it had to be before 1912. I don't know how long she worked for the Harvey Houses but she came west to find cowboys! She did find her future husband!

A Harvey Girl in Civilian Clothes, circa 1905

This rug was hers and I’m assuming it came from Arizona but I have no idea how she got it or any history of it.  It measures 24" square.  Can you help? 

Was this Navajo Saddle Blanket a Wedding Gift in 1912?

I confess I was ignorant of the cultural phenomenon of Harvey Girls and Harvey Houses until I came across their stories while driving across country 25 years ago. 

Between the 1880s and the 1940s over 100,000 women worked as “Harvey Girls” in restaurants all over the west.  Established by Fred Harvey, a peripatetic Englishman transported to the United States, these restaurants and hotels truly contributed to the western expansion of the United States. 

Fred Harvey worked as a postal clerk and freight manager for the Burlington Railroad; his base of operations was Topeka, Kansas.  Prior to his restaurants, train travelers had no dining options while traveling and were at the mercy of unregulated roadhouses or local women selling meals out of their homes.  These independent operators were subject to no standards of quality, nor were their schedules always aligned with train schedules:  if you weren’t finished with your meal when the engineer was ready to over on you either abandoned your meal or missed the train. 

Harvey proposed the idea of building cafes along the railroad but his employer turned the idea down.  He brought the idea to the Atchison Topeka Santa Fe Railroad and was given an open-ended budget to secure sites and build restaurants across the west.  These restaurants produced consistently fresh, high quality meals served in predictably clean dining rooms by strictly regulated waitresses.  The railroad itself delivered fresh produce and meat; the Santa Fe railroad even ran two of its own dairies.

Harvey advertised all over the east coast for neat articulate women of good moral character with at least an 8th grade education to staff the dining rooms.  These women received their tickets west, salary, room and board.  They had to agree to stay in the Harvey employ – including not getting married – for at least six months.

If Hazel lived in Ash Fork, she and fellow Harvey Girls likely worked and lived at the Escalante Hotel.  Harvey Girls abided by strict rules of dress and deportment both on and off duty.  Still, most of these women married and stayed to raise families and communities; they are the ones considered to be responsible for bringing civility, culture and stability to the west. 

Along with restaurants and hotels, the development of Trading Posts grew along the rail lines.  Trading Posts offered Navajos the economic opportunity a place to purchase items like flour, coffee and tobacco – to which they had become accustomed to during their years of forced internment – with wool, pottery, baskets and rugs.  The Navajo items gained popularity with traders and collectors across the United States, even having some influence on some of the design elements.

If Hazel married in 1912, the Navajo weaving might have been gifted to her as a wedding present by friends or co-workers.  The colors and texture of the wool together with the pattern suggest that this saddle blanket sized piece was woven in the first quarter of the 19th century. 

The blanket itself is in poor condition:  the looped ends are worn and the warp and weft seem to be unraveling.  It could be repaired but the restoration would diminish its charm without adding much to the minimal monetary value it currently has.  Make sure the frame’s backing is acid free and you can enjoy your Navajo saddle blankets for generations to come. 

Souvenir Spoon Celebrates a Woman - But Not Who You'd Think!

I found this Chicago World’s Fair spoon cleaning out a relative’s house.  I love the woman on the handle.  Is the spoon valuable? 

Souvenir Spoon of the Woman's Building, 1893 Columbian Exhibition, Chicago

This depends on how you define value.  From a monetary point of view your sterling silver spoon generally sells in the $10-15 range.   From the vantage of architectural, women’s history or sociological attitudes, your spoon is a lot of fun.

The Woman's Building, like many of the World's Fair Buildings, favored neoclassical architecture

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition celebrated the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of the new world; secondarily, it celebrated the rebirth of Chicago after the great fire of 1871 which left more than one third of the city’s 300,000 residents homeless. 

More than 200 largely temporary buildings were built on 600 acres of gardens, waterways and promenades.  The Woman’s Building was one of the most popular. Socialite and philanthropist Bertha Palmer, head of the Board of Lady Managers, led the logistics and financing of this endeavor. 

Palmer conceived a completion and invited only female architects to compete.  The winner was 21year old Sophia Hayden, the first female graduate of MIT’s four-year architecture program.  Hayden designed a building with a gloriously light filled interior behind a relatively austere neoclassical exterior. 

Hayden and Palmer had strong disagreements about the building design:  Hayden wanted purity in her design; Palmer thought the exterior should incorporate ornate architectural features donated by her wealthy friends.  After her design changes were not met, Palmer fired Hayden.  At 21, Hayden retired from architecture, married and spent the rest of her life a painter.

Bertha Palmer was immortalized on spoon but none of the women artists working on the building were acknowledged with souvenir spoons.   Sculptor Enid Yarnell made caryatids on each pillar; Ellen May Rope designed plaster relief panels of Faith, Hope, Love and Charity. Mary Cassatt painted an interior 12 x 58 foot mural “Modern Women” and May Fairchild MacMonnies painted the corresponding “Primitive Women.”   19-year-old Alice Rideout from California designed the pediment and sculpted the four allegorical statues rising from the corners of the building.  Interestingly, Alice Rideout, like architect Sophia Hayden, retired after the Fair and never worked again as a sculptor.  The building was torn down at the completion of the fair and none of the statuary, murals or plasterwork survived. 

The bowl of your spoon depicts architect Sophia Hayden’s Woman’s Building at the 1893 World Columbian Exhibition.  Looking up the handle, your spoon features Alice Rideout’s rooftop statuary robe draped woman with upraised arms cradling a globe; a pair of putti and a profile portrait of a Bertha Matilda Honore Palmer wearing a multi-stand pearl choker, pearl earrings and a garland of flowers.

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition showcased the fascinating friction coming to life as the world modernized and women demanded equality.  For more information about the 1893 Expo look for The Fair Women: The Story of the Women's Building at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893 by Jeanne Madeline Weimann or Women Building History:  Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition by Wanda Corn. For an overall view of the times and the trials of hosting a world event I can’t recommend Erik Larson’s 2004 book, The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America highly enough.

(Lastly, while the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair may be famous for the anecdotal introduction of the ice cream cone, the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair truly did introduce the chocolate brownie.  Bertha Palmer instructed the kitchen of her hotel to make a portable chocolate dessert for ladies’ boxed lunch.)