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Made in America
Depression-era dinnerware keeps maker afloat.
NEWELL, W.Va. — Born of the Great Depression, it was a glossy, color-saturated line of cups, bowls and plates meant to affordably brighten lives and dinner tables. Seven decades later, Fiesta dinnerware is still designed to send a subtle message of optimism, but it’s no longer quite so cheap.
Yet Fiesta’s enduring popularity and strong sales even as consumers cut back are helping to keep struggling Homer Laughlin China Co. afloat. It’s the last major dinnerware producer that makes its products in the U.S., as competitors have shut down or moved offshore.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gerry Porter, of Chester, W.Va., shops for Fiesta Ware on July 28 at the Homer Laughlin Factory Outlet in Newell, W.Va. She likes Fiesta because of the vibrant colors and durability.
“We’re fighting for our lives right now,” President Joe Wells III says of the West Virginia company that’s battling the cost of doing business and the ever-falling prices of foreign competitors.
Earlier this year, Ohio-based Libbey Inc. shut down the last U.S. factory producing Syracuse China, ending 137 years of history and 275 jobs in Salina, N.Y. Now, that china is made in China. Only a handful of U.S. dinnerware producers remain, all smaller than Homer Laughlin and most surviving by capitalizing on a niche.
Family-owned Pickard China in Antioch, Ill., for example, concentrates on custom work for clients like the federal government.
Privately held Homer Laughlin — founded in 1871 across the Ohio River in East Liverpool, Ohio, but in Newell since 1905 — won’t share financial data. Standard & Poor’s estimates it does about $50 million a year in sales.
Fiesta, he says, is helping the company get by. Ask why sales are up slightly, and Wells recounts the line’s Depression-era beginnings and colorful palette. Consumers are eating at home more often now and “they want to have a cheerful dining room or wherever they eat, and Fiesta’s a part of that.”
Fiesta has been produced in 40 colors. The latest, a yellow-green hue called lemongrass, was inspired by Michelle Obama’s Inauguration Day outfit. It now costs as much as $48 for a four-piece setting at Macy’s.
Quality is part of the sales pitch, says regional sales manager Bill Pickin. And he likes to think some buyers care that Fiesta is still made in the United States.
“So how much is American-made worth? How much is a better-quality product worth? You can’t put that in dollar terms,” he says.
His competitors’ falling prices have forced Wells to consider outsourcing. He has a union work force, and environmental and safety regulations they don’t have to contend with. Homer Laughlin, he says, simply cannot be the low-cost provider.
Wells says, “I’m an American, and I’m an American manufacturer, and as long as we can profitably keep jobs here, that’s what I’m going to do.”
— Vicki Smith, The Associated Press
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