Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Old Britain Castles Ceramic Plate, Johnson Brothers (1930)
Description: Dr. Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi fires up legacies of British colonialism in contemporary American consumption, through Johnson Brothers' Old Britain Castles Ceramic Plate, produced from 1930.
Manufactured for export to America, Old Britain Castles promised to connect consumers with their 18th century colonial origins. Produced by the British firm Johnson Brothers from 1930, designers used engravings of Blarney Castle in Ireland to target new immigrants, capitalising on class dynamics after the American Revolution. Miscalculated marketing strategies may have backfired, but the pattern remained in production for 84 years. Antiquated by design, these imagined heirlooms challenge the idea of the 'Roaring Twenties...