The silverware pattern shown on the opposite page is neither the plainest nor the fanciest ever made by the Gorham Company of Rhode Island. Perhaps it is this balance between abundance and austerity that explains the overwhelming success of Chantilly. To date, Gorham has sold 1,800,000 pieces, making it the most popular pattern any company has ever produced. It is, in the words of the historian Charles H. Carpenter, Jr., “the silverware your grandmother and my grandmother owned.”

The Rhode Island silver business dates back to the 169Os. By 1831, when Jabez Gorham formed a partnership with Henry Webster to make coin-silver spoons, American silver was a wellestablished craft industry, with spoon makers in most leading cities and towns. Silver was an upper-class amenity at this point; a simple spoon might cost the equivalent of two days’ wages. Events of the next twenty years, however, conspired to create a true industry of American silver at affordable prices. In 1839 the British firm of Elkington developed silver plate and began exporting it to America; by the early 184Os American smiths were so threatened that they successfully lobbied Congress for tariff protection against British plate and sterling. In the 183Os and 184Os the domestic silver supply was scarce, and most wares were made from coin silver; after about 1850, with the acquisition of Western lands in the Mexican War, a vast supply of domestic silver became available.

Finally, and most significantly, in the early 185Os mechanization came to the silver industry. Coin-silver spoons had been made by hand. The process was slow, and elaborate decoration was too time-consuming to be practical. This was a matter of some concern to John Gorham, who took over the company from his father in 1848. He wanted to lower the cost per piece and open up the market, and he knew that mechanization was the only way. So in the spring and summer of 1852, he took a trip to Europe. One reason was to meet with fellow silversmiths. In the wake of the 184Os tariff bill, not all were happy to see him. “Called on Thomas Walstenhone at James Dixon & Sons,” he wrote in his diary for May 21. “Was treated very politely but couldn’t get in shop.” Another objective was to purchase a steam-powered drop press from the inventor and tool-maker James Nasmyth. The deal was consummated for about S170, delivered, and the new Gorham drop press arrived in Providence sometime in 1853 or 1854, making possible a mass success story like Chantilly.

The Gorham drop press was the silver industry’s first. It instantly rendered the handmaking of flatware obsolete, speeding up production and lowering costs to the point where a middle-class family might consider for the first time owning a large set of matched silver (Chantilly, for example,