International Silver Company

The International Silver Company was formed in Meriden, Connecticut as a corporation banding together many existing silver companies in the immediate area and beyond. In Meriden, and nearby Wallingford and Middletown, these companies included Meriden Britannia Company, Meriden Silver Plate Co., Middletown Plate Company, C. Rogers & Brother, Simpson, Hall, Miller & Co., Simpson Nickel Company, Watrous Manufacturing Company, and the Wilcox Silver Plate Co.

In Hartford, the following silver companies also became part of the corporation: Barbour Silver Company, Rogers Cutlery and William Rogers Manufacturing Company. Other companies that became part of the corporation also include Holmes & Edwards Silver Company in Bridgeport, Derby Silver Company in Derby, Norwich Cutlery in Norwich, Rogers and Brothers and Rogers and Hamilton in Waterbury, Manhattan Silver Plate in Lyons, New Yorkand Standard Silver Company, Ltd. in Toronto, Canada. Into the 20th century, many silver designs carry either the International Silver Company brand, or the pre-existing brand continues, or both are listed as the design maker.

International Silver Company products have been exhibited in numerous museum exhibitions in the United States and beyond. For example, ISC was represented at several Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibitions during the later 1920s and 1930s including "The architect and the industrial arts: An exhibition of contemporary American design" (1929). ISC is particularly known in the museum world for its high-quality Modernist designs from 1928 into the 1960s, which were exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and the Wolfsonian in Miami Beach, Florida in 2005-07. This exhibition highlighted many ISC design achievements, including its installation called the "Moon Room" exhibited in the Pavilion of American Interiors at the 1964 New York World's Fair exhibited in 1964-65.

One of the most exhibited ISC design objects is the space-age looking urn designed by Eliel Saarinen (1934) for Wilcox Silver Plate Co. / International Silver Company. The urn was exhibited in the exhibition St. Louis Modern (2015–16) and Cranbrook Goes to the Movies: Films and Their Objects, 1925–1975 (2014–15). Saarinen's urn has become a 20th century Modern design icon.

Starting in the late 1930s, ISC sponsored the Silver Theater, a radio program in Hollywood featuring many stars of the era and broadcast on CBS radio. In parallel, print advertisements in LIFE and other magazines starting in 1937 featured product endorsements for ISC / 1847 Rogers Bros. silverware by several Hollywood movie actresses including Judy Garland, Carole Lombard, Ginger Rogers, Rosalind Russell, Dinah Shore. In 1949-50, the program continued on CBS television as The Silver Theatre.