Red Wing Pottery History

Union Stoneware Company

A Sales & Marketing Cooperative

The “Panic of 1893” severely affected the three stoneware companies in Red Wing. To save cost by eliminating duplication of effort, they jointly formed a separate corporation to handle the sales and marketing of their ware. Each company was obliged to produce every item on the ware list, and incoming orders would be divided among the member firms by their respective sales the previous year. Minnesota Stoneware Co. earned 42 percent, RWSCo. 34, leaving North Star with 24 percent. Shares of the orders could only be changed by approval of two-thirds of the votes by the Union Stoneware Co. Directors.

After North Star folded, the company by-laws was amended to give 55 percent of the orders received to MSWCO. and 45 percent to RWSCo.

Unione Stoneware Company catalog page with pottery and jar descriptions for collectors. — Due to the patriotic theme, it is presumed that this die-cut, lithographed advertising card was created during the Spanish- American War, which lasted from April to December 1898.

The ware produced occasionally continued to include the manufacturer’s impressed on the side or molded-in identification on their bottoms, but after rubber stamp-applied identification ovals were adopted, generally coincident with the beginning of the use of white-glaze, the stamped ovals read “Union Stoneware Co, Red Wing, Minn.” Only a few items bore molded-in Union Stoneware Co identification.

Here are pairs of hand-turned jars and “bee hive” jugs, each bearing the rubber stamp-applied capacity number, decoration and identification oval of the Union Stoneware Co., one each in blue and the other in black. They can be dated generally from the dawn of the 20th Century, when the change-over to white-glaze was complete, until 1906, when the companies merged under the name Red Wing Union Stoneware Co. Both the out-turned “Elephant Ear Leaves” and the tapered “Birch Leaves” originated before the turn of the century, as they have occasionally been found on salt-glazed examples. The “Elephant Ear” decoration fell out of use by 1906, apparently because getting the complete design to transfer as the stamp was rolled across the surface was difficult, especially on the hand-turned jugs or churns with their compound curve. This style of jug was hand-turned, but by this period, all jars were machine-turned, and jars up through 5-gallons sometimes included molded-in names of the individual company that made them.