Reforming the Domestic Landscape

The design for American Modern dinnerware was as much personal inspiration as it was calculated marketing. In an undated four-page document in the Wright Archives at Syracuse University, Wright reveals the results of market surveys he made into the trends in contemporary ceramic dinnerware, of which he would begin to design his first in 1937 to add to his American Modern furnishings. Wright's report includes the following,[21]

We conclude from our market survey that solid color California dinnerware, of informal character-the exception among masses of traditionbound formal dinnerware-has been rapidly gaining popularity. We therefore deduct [sic] that it is safe to break away from the formal, traditional conception of dinnerware rules, and to develop dinnerware with greater regard for present day serving trends. We recommend:

1. The inclusion of hollowware pieces of informal serving character….
2. The addition of certain "stove to table" pieces for combination cooking and serving usage….
3. "Ice Box to Table" pieces for combination refrigerator storage and table service.
4. Multipurpose pieces, rather than highly specialized pieces, thus cutting down the number [of different pieces required for a place setting.]
5. In answer to a growing consumer demand for practicality, that the shapes of certain pieces be determined more by their use than by traditional dictates….

We believe that the California ware has been so successful mainly because its bold shapes and solid colors attract the eye more than to the small scaled, anemic, detailed, traditional forms of conventional dinnerware. We deduct therefore that ware of solid color need not be decorated by decalcomania or by handpainted ornamentation, in order to sell. We recommend:

1. Subtler, more subdued colors. The crude and primary colors of the California ware have created an opening for other types of color….
2. That colors be thought of in relation to food, i.e., that colors provide a good and appetizing background for food.
3. That at least five colors be chosen to tie up well with each other in order to sell in vari-colored assortments….
4. …We recommend the adaption [sic] of textured, variegated art glazes-glazes of this type having always been associated with fine and expensive pottery….

His attention to the user's desires and needs through market surveys indicates that Russel was concerned with sales. His conclusions also reveal the maturing of his philosophy that new designs should not just be new but serve better and more useful purposes. The new line was designed in 1937,[22] but it took Mary and Russel two years to get it into production. Many of the country's ceramic factories had closed or were in serious financial trouble due to the Depression and foreign competition. The Wrights finally approached the Steubenville Pottery in eastern Ohio, which agreed to produce the line but only if the Wright's invested their own money to create the molds.

Cast and glazed by hand, American Modern offered new, unique colors to be matched or mixed according to individual tastes and to the occasion. Affordable and available as "open stock," the unusual designs and intriguing colors struck a chord with the public and became the most widely sold in American history. In production until 1959, a quarter billion pieces were stamped with his distinctive signature, making his name one of the most recognized "brands" in the country.

Bolstered by the successful introduction of American Modern, Russel conceived a scheme in 1940 that he envisioned would revolutionize the American home—The American Way. Its flag-waving brochure, borrowing brashly from patriotic sources, proclaimed,

So proudly we hail the American Way, a prophetic new design for living, dedicated to the proposition that American home furnishings should be designed for the living by the living. What is the American-Way? It is a dream for the future, and a reality today! It is the first broad plan ever attempted, to create contemporary home-furnishings for the American way of life. It is the collaboration of American artists and important manufacturers to give direction to American design.[23]

Wright's American-Way was to promote regional designers through group promotions in department stores across the country. Each work, produced by regional manufacturers, was to be "designed with forthright recognition of the inherent worth of the material from which it is made. No attempt is made to imitate the characteristics of other materials."[24] In his zeal, Wright solicited the talents of over a hundred designers, artists and craftsmen, including the well-known Regionalist painters Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry. Their inclusion makes clear Wright's intention to extend the Regionalists' vision of a distinctly American art into the realm of design. Introduced on September 21, 1940, at a reception at Macy's department store in New York, hosted by Eleanor Roosevelt, the American-Way was, sadly, doomed to failure. Encumbered by production, supply and distribution problems, it was further shackled by America's entry into World War II. The grand plan folded in little more than a year of its inception.

Disappointed, Mary and Russel took a cross-country trip to California and briefly contemplated the possibility of relocating. They abandoned the idea and, instead, returned to New York City committed to finding property for a weekend retreat in upstate New York. In 1941, they purchased an 80-acre parcel of land near the Hudson River in the Hudson Highlands, just north of the Bear Mountain Bridge, which they would come to name "Manitoga," an Algonquin Indian word meaning "Place of the Great Spirit." A small house on the property served their weekend living needs for several years. We will return to Manitoga later.

Wright continued to release unique designs including the handmade look of Bauer accessories, the unbreakable Casual China produced by the Iroquois Company, Highlight, for Paden City Pottery, with its unique but fragile "Snow Glass" pieces, and the notable Melamine plastic design, Residential, which received the Museum of Modern Art's Good Design Award when it was introduced in 1953. Wright designed boldly patterned fabrics for the Leacock Company in 1948, continuing with the Simtex Company in 1950. White Clover, for Harker Pottery, heralded Russel's first use of decoration with a pattern of white clover-flowers embossed into the surface. Each of these designs and others are thoroughly discussed and identified in Ann Kerr's Collector's Encyclopedia of Russel Wright[25] and Joe Keller and David Ross' Russel Wright: Dinnerware, Pottery & More.[26]

By the early 1950s, Russel Wright's name and signature logo were ubiquitous. Not only did they appear on every item that was produced that he had designed, they appeared in thousands of magazine advertisements promoting his designs as well as other products and materials that he endorsed. The media reinforced the message that the name Russel Wright meant affordable, efficient, good taste. In 1950, Russel designed a new line of furniture for the Statton Furniture Company of Hagerstown, Maryland, which he called Easier Living, and which offered a number of convenient innovations. The Easier Living Chair, for example, featured a drop-leaf writing surface on the sitter's right and a swing-out magazine rack on the left. The line, all constructed of solid Sycamore wood, also included a space saving, drop-leaf dining table with unique, integrated wooden hinges.

Drawing upon their reputation as experts in the field of domestic design, Mary and Russel assembled all of their ideas about modern, efficient living in their Guide to Easier Living, published by Simon and Schuster in 1951, which took its name from the recent Statton furniture line. The Guide proposed hundreds of ways to improve modern living; the Wrights directly challenged what they considered to be the staid and antiquated advice of Emily Post. Outdated etiquette should be replaced with more relaxed interaction. Seated dinners served by maids should be replaced with self-service buffets. Outdoor entertaining was encouraged as a way to bring the home closer to nature. Emblematic of Wright's American living concept was the dinner table. Curators Donald Albrecht and Robert Schonfeld observed that, "Wright conceived the domestic environment broadly, working in layers from the very core of home life-the table-outward toward furnishings, interiors, architecture, and landscape."[27] Basing their new concepts for living on American traditions, Mary and Russel wrote,

We deplore the passing of the American farm kitchen, with its massive dining table in the center. This is not mere sentimentality. That big table was the logical place for the entire family to dine. The hot biscuits were really hot out of the oven, the second helpings kept warm on the back of the stove, and Mother did not waste a step in setting, serving, or clearing.[28]

The Guide codified the message of contemporary cookbooks and ladies magazines that were prescribing new casual lifestyles that were, in part, imposed on American families with the disappearance of domestic help. Such help had been a staple of even middle class homes prior to the Depression. The Guide's appeal extended beyond American homes when a Japanese edition was published and where Wright's name was almost as well known as it was in America. The irony of the Guide to Easier Living was that following all its recommendations would have challenged even the most obsessive efficiency expert.

Mary and Russel's friendship and partnership was not to last. Mary died in 1952, leaving Russel with enormous challenges. Their daughter, Annie, was two years old, and Russel was now sole owner of the land in Garrison. Without Mary's business acumen, Wright felt adrift with his design practice. While he accomplished some of his most elegant designs through the 1950s and into the 1960s, none was as commercially successful as the Steubenville American Modern.

In late 1953, Russel learned that he had been chosen to receive an annual award from the Lebanon, Ohio, Chamber of Commerce, honoring Lebanon citizens who had gained national prominence. He returned with Annie to Lebanon on March 29, 1954 to receive the award. On the occasion, Russel commented, "I am proud of coming from such a representative American town. It is a…common denominator of American life. As a boy, it offered to me the possibility of seeing the interrelation of a small community and therefore understanding the basic interrelation of people in all communities."[29] This observation was key to his understanding the lives and needs of people half a world away.

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