Reed & Barton was named after Henry G. Reed and Charles E. Barton who worked their way up to becoming presidents of the silver company in Taunton, Massachusetts in 1824. The company produced a wide range of silver from flatware to tea sets and trophies. The company went bankrupt in 2015, and today the Lenox company owns the company name and continues to produce flatware.  

In 2015 when the Reed & Barton factory was being emptied, more than 20,000 design drawings and documents were transferred to the Fleet Library at RISD. The documents include renderings to communicate what objects will look like, profile drawings to communicate how objects will be made, shop drawings to indicate tooling information, weight of parts, materials used, revision and approval history, and other manufacturing details. The earliest documents are blueprints made for the US Navy, 1897, the latest from 1986, with the majority from 1910 to 1950. 

Collection highlights include drawings for silver intended (but apparently not made) for the USS Houston, 1929, prototypes from Gio Ponti for his original design of what became the Diamond flatware pattern, 1954, designs by Eliel Saarinen, 1930, original drawings by Belle Kogan for the vegetable dish she designed in 1936, and hundreds of carved wood handle and spout models.

This collection has been graciously supported by the Taunton - South Shore Foundation.

Fleet Library at RISD:

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