This fold out brochure is in the collection of the Cooper Hewitt Library Special Collections. It’s accompanied by a price list and order form, created by manufacturer Steubenville Pottery Company of Steubenville, Ohio and dating between 1939 and 1959, promotes more than 30 pieces of American Modern dinnerware designed by industrial designer Russel Wright (1904-1976). ...

Russel Wright’s massively popular American Modern Dinnerware line remained in production for 20 years—from 1939 to 1959—but that was only after Wright spent two years prodding reluctant manufacturers to mass-produce his unconventional ceramics. The line was a departure from everything that design, and tableware in particular, represented in prior years. Instead of restrained and formal,...