Weller pottery
| Corporation | |
| Founded | 1872 in Fultonham, Ohio, United States |
| Founder | Samuel A. Weller |
| Defunct | 1948 |
| Headquarters | Zanesville, Ohio |
| Products | Vases, pots, ceramic tile, cuspidors, bowls, crocks |
In 1872, Samuel A. Weller founded Weller Pottery in Fultonham, Ohio, United States. Originally, his business consisted of a small cabin and one beehive kiln, and Weller produced flower pots, bowls, crocks, and vases. By 1905, Weller Pottery was the largest pottery in the country. It mass-produced art pottery until about 1920, and it produced commercial lines until the pottery closed in 1948.
In 1872, when Samuel Augustus Weller (1851−1925) was 21, he established and operated a one-man pottery in Fultonham in Muskingum County, Ohio. Between 1882−1890, he had expanded to Zanesville, with a factory on Pierce Street along the river. In1893 he saw William Long's Lonhuda ware at the Chicago World’s Fair, and Long joined Weller to produce this faience-glazed pottery line. When Long left Weller’s employ after less than a year, Weller renamed the faience line Louwelsa after his daughter Louisa, who had been born in 1896.
From 1895−1904, Charles Babcock Upjohn was Weller's head designer, developing the Dickensware I, Dickensware II, Eocean and Corleone lines.
By 1897, Henry Schmidt designed Weller’s Turada line, the first "squeeze-bag" pottery line in the Ohio valley. Decorators used squeeze-bags like cake decorators, squeezing the paint onto the ceramic rather than painting it on with brushes.
From 1902−1907, Jacques Sicard and Henri Gellie worked at Weller’s pottery to develop a metallic glaze, which had been introduced by Clement Massier in France by 1889, as Reflets Metalliques. The Sicardo line went into production in the fall of 1903, but the process was difficult, and only about 30% of the finished pots were marketable.
In this same period, between 1902 and 1905, Weller had become the world's largest pottery and mass-producer of art pottery. In 1903 and 1904, Frederick Hurten Rhead worked for a short time at Weller Pottery, developing Jap Birdimal line in 1904. He left in 1904 to become Roseville Pottery’s first art director, and later designed the very popular Fiesta line for Homer Laughlin China Company.
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