Isaac Babbitt by Bass Otis, 1849

OCHM

Taunton Free Press

May 14,, 1824

Isaac Babbitt

Isaac Babbitt (1799–1862) came from a family of gadget makers and inventors. In his Merchant’s Row jewelry store in Taunton, he experimented to replicate the Britannia metal, then exclusively imported from England. In partnership with William Crossman from 1824, Babbitt moved operations to a purpose-built factory on Lafayette Street and began making teaware in 1827. Babbitt sold his share of the company in 1829.

William Crossman

William W. Crossman (1794–?) apprenticed in the jeweler’s trade in Taunton before establishing himself in business in Castleton, VT. When that venture failed he returned to Taunton in 1823 and fell into business with Isaac Babbitt who was just arriving at success replicating the alloy to create Britannia metal.

In 1824 they formed Babbitt and Crossman to begin manufacturing Britannia ware in space rented from Roswell Ballard’s cloth processing mill on Spring Street, powered by the Mill River. Crossman married Sarah Barton (sister of Charles) in 1820.

William Allen West

William Allen West (1801–1864) ran a successful dry goods store on Merchant’s Row in Taunton, adjacent to Babbit & Crossman’s retail location. With available funds, he helped solidify the young Babbit and Crossman company by joining as a financial agent in 1827 (adding “& Co.”  to the firm’s name). When Zephaniah Leonard purchase Isaac Babbitt’s share of the company in 1829, the name changed to Crossman West & Leonard, which stuck through 1837.

Clara White Reed, 1839

Zephaniah, Horatio, and Gustavus Leonard

Taunton’s prosperous Leonard family, responsible for the development of the iron industry in Taunton, was central to the growth of the company. It is difficult to distinguish one generation of Leonard from the next, as they all had the same names (one Zephaniah not only named his first son Zephaniah, he then also gave the name to a later son when the first one died young). The successful land owners bought into the company in 1829, creating Crossman West & Leonard. At first they were financial partners only, owning the land the factory was on, and one third of the equipment. Horatio Leonard (1780–1858) infused more capital in 1830, giving the family a greater share of the company. In 1832 Horatio purchased the entire company (for $15,000), renaming it the Taunton Britannia Manufacturing Company. His son Gustavus was installed to run the company 1837, when it was again renamed, this time to Leonard, Reed & Barton. Although Gustavus sold his share to the partners in 1840, he continued on as a salesman and treasurer, and the company arrived, finally, at its ultimate name: Reed & Barton.

Henry G. Reed

Charles E. Barton

George Braebrook

William Dowse

Sinclair Weeks

Clara White Reed & Marietta White

Clara White Reed was wife of Henry Reed. Her diaries, spanning the years 1839–1847, are now at the Old Colony History Museum, and have been scanned. Her younger sister Marietta White also kept a diary from 1844 to 1847 which is also now at OCHM.

Henry G. Reed

Henry Gooding Reed (1810–1901) joined the Taunton Britannia Manufacturing Company in 1828 as an apprentice, learning the trade of metal spinning. In 1835, with his friend Charles Barton, Reed stepped in to rescue the failing company suffering from the economic uncertainties which led to the Panic of 1837. With rented buildings and tools, and a tiny crew of five dedicated employees, the pair managed to keep the concern afloat and eventually become profitable. Although Reed left the company in 1838 (reasons unknown), he returned the next year, and remained until his death in 1901, after 73 years at work. Reed’s shares in the company were inherited by his daughters Clara Hubbard and Fanny Dowse, whose husband William Dowse became the next president of Reed & Barton.

Charles E. Barton

Charles Edward Barton (1812–1867), the brother-in-law of William Crossman, is as central to the development of Reed & Barton as he is enigmatic. In 1827, when just 19, he relocated to Taunton from Warren, RI, and began working as an apprentice learning the soldering trade. Although eventual partner in the company, Barton continued to work at his bench soldering, performing the added function of peace-keeper as the company endured seemingly endless variations of management, ownership, and name. Barton died in 1867, and the surviving Reed & Barton partners purchased his share of the company from his family.

George Brabrook

George Brabrook (1828–1908), brother of company accountant Alfred Brabrook, arrived at Reed & Barton as an apprentice in 1850. By 1859 he had become so successful at sales that he was admitted as a partner. His forty years overseeing sales and finance saw the growth of the company from a small regional metalware maker to a global powerhouse. IN 1873 Brabrook established and in-house design department to shift from copying English wares to creating original, American designs. By 1889 there were twenty-four designers and modelers working with the support of a growing library of design reference books. In 1889 Brabrook guided Reed & Barton into manufacturing in sterling silver, leading to the creation of some of the company’s greatest designs. Brabrook’s 1898 patent (#606183) transformed the manufacturing of plated flatware by attaching small pieces of solid silver to the base metal before plating to avoid base metal showing through at areas of high wear. In 1907 Brabook, increasingly in conflict with William Dowse, sold his significant share of the company, leading to a struggle for control of Reed & Barton.

William Bradford Homer Dowse

William Bradford Homer Dowse (1852–1928) married Henry Reed’s daughter Fanny, and took over as president after Reed’s death in 1901. With extensive business experience developed at the Consolidated Fastener Company (which he continued running even as he took on Reed & Barton), Dowse prepared for growth into the 20th century by installing electricity throughout the Reed & Barton buildings, augmenting the existing water and steam power with new electric turbines, and establishing new manufacturing and pricing based on scientific cost analysis. Dowse diversified the company output to include bronze memorials, ready-made trophies, china tableware, sterling silver services for numerous US battleships, and a revival of pewter ware to take advantage of America’s growing enthusiasm for the Colonial Revival. Reed & Barton opened a retail location on Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street in New York City in 1905, and in 1910 Dowse bought out partners Brabrook and Fish, making Reed & Barton a one-family business for the first time in its long history. Dowse retired in 1923 and died in 1928.

Sinclair Weeks

Sinclair Weeks (1893–1972) was son of brokerage banker, US Senator, and former Secretary of War John Wingate Weeks. After graduation from Harvard in 1914, Weeks entered banking and married Beatrice Dowse, daughter of William Dowse. After service in the first World War, Weeks was pulled into management at Reed & Barton as his father-in-law’s health declined. William Dowse retired in 1923, and Weeks became president of the company until 1953 with a time away in 1942 when he was appointed US Senator for Massachusetts, and stepped back from running the company. He became US Secretary of Commerce from 1953 to 1958 and was instrumental in overseeing the success of the Interstate Highway system of 1956.

Arthur Ashworth

Sinclair Weeks, Jr.

Albert D. Krebel

Tim K. Riddle

Colonel Arthur Ashworth

Arthur Ashworth, Captain of a machine gun unit and later Colonel during WWI, became Vice President in charge of sales and General Manager at Reed & Barton where he arrived 1925. When Sinclair Weeks became a US Senator in 1942, he stepped down from the Board of Directors, resigned as President, and elevated Ashworth to the position. From 1935 to 1936 “The Colonel” was also President of the Sterling Silversmiths Guild of America.

Roger Hallowell

Roger Haydock Hallowell (1910–1990) joined Reed & Barton in 1938 as a personnel director. He married Frances Lee Weeks, daughter of Sinclair Weeks, and became president in 1953.. Hallowell oversaw the company’s continuing focus on silver flatware through the 1950s; many of the most collected Reed & Barton patterns arrived in the Hallowell era including Fleur-de-lis, Classic Rose, Silver Wheat, Silver Sculpture, The Lark, Star, and Diamond. Hallowell retired in 1971, and served as chairman until 1986.

Sinclair Weeks, Jr.

Sinclair Weeks, Jr. (“Sinny” to coworkers) (born 1923) joined the Reed & Barton Board of Directors in 1959, and was president from 1972 to 1988. Weeks, Jr.  graduated from Harvard University with SB and MBA degrees and was an officer in the USAAF from 1943-1945. Weeks, Jr. was president through the tumultuous price fluctuations of silver pricing in the late 1970s which saw it go from $6 to $50 an ounce in 1979 alone, turning the metal into a market investment more than a raw material. After retiring in 1988, Weeks, Jr. became chairman on the board. There is a 1996 oral history interview with Weeks, Jr. here.

Henry C. Gill, Jr.

Henry C. Gill, Jr. (1927–2017) attended Harvard Business School, and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.Gill worked for Reed & Barton starting in 1953 and retired as president in 1992. It is unclear how this reconciles with the presidencies of Weeks, Jr. and Krebel. This may be the result of splitting the company into Reed & Barton Silversmiths and Reed & Barton Corporation, each with indicidual president and CEO positions.

Albert D. Krebel

Tim K. Riddle was president and CEO from 2001 through the bankruptcy filing in 2015. Riddle had been president of Anchor Hocking before arriving at Reed & Barton.

George L. Turner studied design at Rhode Island School of Design. He started at Reed & Barton in 1920 and stayed on well into the 1940s. There are more than 13 design patents in his name, and he was responsible for creating hollow ware to augment the hugely popular Francis First flatware in 1920, and designed the Nancy Lee flatware pattern in 1939 among many others. In drawings across the various Reed & Barton archives, Turner’s name appears on more drawings than any other.

Theodore Cayer

Theodore Cayer was head designer at Reed & Barton in 1957 when Gio Ponti’s designs for what became the successful Diamond pattern arrived from Italy. Cayer oversaw the adjustments needed to make the pattern manufacturable and better suited to the US market. Special Collections at The RISD Library has the original Ponti prototypes for this flatware as well as all of the production drawings for the flatware. There are eight design patents for spoons in Cayer’s name, and he designed the Classic Rose and Stylist flatware patterns.

John (Jack) Prip

Gio Ponti

Belle Kogan

Giovanni (Gio) Ponti (1891–1979) began his career in the 1920s and his work from the 1950s and 60s defines Italian design and architecture. His best remembered projects include Milan’s Torre Rasini (1933) and Pirelli Tower (1956), and the Denver Art Museum (1971). In addition to architecture, Ponti maintained a regular practice as industrial designer (creating now iconic designs for toilets, sinks, coffee makers, sewing machines), furniture designer (his Superleggera chair (1955) set a new standard for combining aesthetics, craft, and structure), and interior designer. He founded Domus magazine in 1928, serving as editor until his death, and taught at Milan Politecnico for nearly thirty years. In 1954 Reed & Barton worked with Ponti as a judge (along with sculptor Isamu Noguchi) for its “Silver Design Competition in Italy.” Ponti was then commissioned to design what became the Diamond pattern, introduced in 1958.

Belle Kogan

Belle Kogan (1902–2000) began her long career in design in 1929, working for short-lived Quaker Silver Co. in Attleboro, MA. By 1932 she had opened her own design office in New York and went on to design for scores of manufacturers. Her ceramic designs for Red Wing Pottery and her plastic tableware for Boonton were her most visible work. Her early advocacy for manufacturing in plastics, and her persuasive argument for considering the opinions of female consumers as the most central to design decisions distinguish her legacy. In 1936 Kogan produced designs for Reed & Barton. There are at least seven designs (all found in the Dallas Art Museum collection) that went into production, perhaps more. There are drawings for the most prevalent covered serving dish in Special Collections at the RISD Library. Kogan’s name was not attached to the designs or used to promote them at the time.

Eliel Saarinen