William McKinley (1843-1901)
President, 1897-1901
Knowles, Taylor and Knowles of East Liverpool, Ohio, delivered three dozen bone china plates to the White House in November 1898, the first entirely American-made china acquired for the executive mansion. The design included the Great Seal of the United States in the center with gold tracery on a wide border of cobalt blue. According to Colonel John N. Taylor, president of the company and a political ally of McKinley’s, the plates were criticized “severely and seemed to give such poor satisfaction that I have felt it would be wrong to ask pay for them.”1 Susan Gray Detweiler, from American Presidential China: The Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008), pp. 71-72.
Notes:
1) Klapthor et al., Official White House China, p. 143.
