History of Gorham Stainless Steel Flatware - The President's

Choice

Gorham Stainless Steel Flatware was first a small shop in Providence, Rode Island ran by Jabez Gorham who started off designing jewelry in

1813.

He later gave the company to his son John - who later evolved it into a flatware designing shop. They became one

of the largest manufacturing silversmith's in the world.

Many different companies over the years have bought this company. Lenox which is one of them are now the manufactures of Gorham Stainless Steel Flatware.

Before selling his company to his son, and retiring in 1847, Jabez had partnered with Henry Webster. They specialized

in sterling silver and made all sorts of small items like combs, jewelry, teapots. A tariff had occurred back in those days banding the shipment of silverware outside the United

States.

This made the American Silver Industry boom. After John took over he wasted no time in expanding everything from the assembly line to the workers. He hired highly skilled

foreign designers to train the American workers.

They later became the Gorham Manufacturing Company in 1890 moving to a bigger facility in Providence. It was

Gorham designers who crafted the popular flatware pattern Chantilly. Like I stated earlier several different companies

purchase the Gorham company.

The Gorham flatware were used in the White house on many occasions. The Chantilly pattern was used by the family of George W. Bush on Air Force One. Not much mentioned

about quality of Gorham Stainless Steel Flatware, nevertheless; if it was good enough for the white house and for President George W. Bush I would guess it had quality.

Since Lenox has taken over production of Gorham flatware, I would assume they have all their designer patterns also,

probably making Lenox stainless steel flatware a competitive brand to contend with.

Some companies may not mention that both brand names are one in the same, so whether you shop around and find

Lenox or Gorham stainless steel flatware know they are one of the same.

Kind of makes you wonder if they have taken on the Lenox or the Gorham tradition of production - probably a mixture of

both.

Remember when you see Lenox or Gorham they are different brand names yet under the same organization of

production.

Since both brands have made a name for themselves, it's probably wise that they continue to use both brand names

separately.

This is probably is an advantage on other companies to have two different brands working for you rather than just one.

Sources:

http://www.studiowilliam.com/US/

http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Gorham-Stainless-Steel-Flatware---The-Presidents-Choice&id=8072798