Among the practical uses that tiles were put to in Babylonia (626 B. C. to 522 B. C.) was that of a circulating medium. The tiles used were four and a half inches in length by one to three inches in breadth, with their value in gold or silver, the name of the reigning king, and the date of issue inscribed on their face.
Very little is known about the tiles of the Jews and Phoeni cians—so little, that some have doubted if these people used them to any great extent.
Among the Greeks tiles were used in large numbers, that is, the unglazed kind, for tombs, for roofs and floors, pediments and friezes ; as to their glazed tiles we know little or nothing. How far they carried the art of tile making it is hard to say, although we know from their writers and the examples of their other pottery that they must have attained a high standard.
With the Etruscans tiles were principally used to line the walls of tombs. The tiles were large, forty inches long and twenty inches wide, with figures and inscriptions painted on them in red, black and white, and burnt in the tile (See Fig. 203).
The Romans inherited the art of tile making from their Etruscan forefathers, and also used them as they did for tombs, but more commonly on the walls and roofs of their houses ; these tiles were sometimes scale-shaped, sometimes oblong, oftener flanged ; in color they were of a rich red and bright yellow. The floor tiles were made in small cubes of various colors and were set in patterns.
With the fall of the Roman empire, the art of tile making, like all other arts, passed under a cloud, but only for a while, for it was brought to life again by the Mohammedans in the East and the Monks in the West, to shine with greater splen dor than ever before.
The development of tile making in the United States has been the most remarkable instance of rapid progress of an industry of any country or age, and our tile makers may be relied upon to hold the place they have gained against all the competition of Europe.
Scarcely two years after the Centennial Exposition, Mr. John G. Low, of Chelsea, Mass., commenced the erection of a tile factory in his native place. Less than a year and a half after the works were started we find the firm competing with English tile makers at the exhibition at Crewe, which was conducted under the auspices of the Royal Manchester, Liverpool, and North Lancaster Agricultural Society. They won the gold
medal for the best collection of art tiles exhibited. This record serves to illustrate the remarkably rapid development of an in dustry new in America, but old in the East, and shows the resources at command of the American potter.
In 1883, Mr. John F. Low, son of the founder, became as sociated with his father under the style of J. G. & J. F. Low.
These works make stove tiles, calendar tiles, clothes-hooks, paper-weights, inkstands, and pitchers in plain colors, enameled and glazed. Lately they have been making a specialty of the manufacture of art-tile soda fountains, specimens of which are shown in Figs. 204 and 203.
The Beaver Falls Art Tile Company, Limited, of Beaver Falls, Pa. ; the Providential Tile Works, Trenton, N. J. ; the Trent Tile Company, Trenton, N. J. ; the Cambridge Art Tile Works, Covington, Ky. ; and the Menlo Park Ceramic Works, Menlo Park, N. J., are also engaged in the manufacture of art tiles.
In the production of printed, inlaid, and relief tiles, America has advanced rapidly, but in the production of hand-painted art tiles she is as yet deficient. This is a branch of the art that must be developed through the influence of our mechan ical art schools, which are paving the way for an early revolu tion in ceramic industry in the United States.
Our designers saw much at the Columbian Exposition in 1893 to start them to thinking, and when the present industrial depression shall have passed away there will be brought out many new and artistic designs in art tiles.
The process of creating from clay those exquisite creations in decorative design known as art tiles was explained to me by Mr. Lawshe. The tile factory is on the outskirts of Trenton, N. J.
Mr. Lawshe conducted me to the yard, where a lot of cars stood on a railroad track loaded with creamy-colored clay or chalk. It was dumped by a couple of chalk-begrimed work men into big sheds not unlike coal bins, only much larger.