WLA nyhistorical Towle Silversmiths Punch bowl

Towle Silversmiths is an American

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

manufacturer. Towle Silversmiths was founded in 1690 by William Moulton II, the first

silversmith A silversmith is a metalworker who crafts objects from silver. The terms ''silversmith'' and ''goldsmith'' are not exact synonyms, as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are (or were, at least) largely the same but differed in that t ...

in Newbury, Mass. Moulton's family continued to operate the shop, and in 1857 apprentices Anthony Francis Towle and William P. Jones incorporated their work as Towle & Jones. In 1873 it became A.F. Towle & Son, and then in 1882, Anthony Francis Towle established the Towle Manufacturing Co. while still owning A.F. Towle & Son. In 1890, the company adopted the trademark of a large script "T" enclosing a lion. Richard Dimes, an English silversmith who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1881, started Towle's hollowware line. Dimes, who also worked for the Frank W. Smith Silver Co., would independently establish Richard Dimes Co. in Boston. Ultimately, the company's name was changed to Towle Silversmiths. Over the years, Towle has created numerous sterling silver flatware patterns in the United States: including the "Candlelight" in 1934, the "Marie Louise" in 1939, which became the official sterling silver pattern for U.S. embassies worldwide, and "Old Master" in 1942, now considered by some to be the company's flagship pattern. "Contour" in 1950 (designed by Robert J. King, patented by John Van Koert) was the first American sterling pattern to manifest post-World War II organic modernist design and the only production-line American flatware included in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

's Good Design exhibitions. Craftsman Towle Silver

The company expanded after a series of acquisitions in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1986, due to problems with inventory and distribution and a weak retail market, Towle filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In 1990, Towle Silversmiths was acquired by the holding company Syratech Inc., which also owned Wallace Silversmiths and the

International Silver Company The International Silver Company (1898–1983, stopped making silver), later known as Insilco Corporation and also known as the ISC, was formed in Meriden, Connecticut as a corporation banding together many existing silver companies in the i ...

. In 2006, Lifetime Brands Inc. purchased Syratech Inc., acquiring all three brands.

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Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

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Hamilton E. Towle
, 29-Oct-1881, pp.272 {{Authority control American silversmiths Companies based in Massachusetts Cutlery brands