Gorham Research Inquiries

Researchers are welcome to come and use the Gorham Archive at the John Hay Library, which is located at 20 Prospect Street, on the corner of Prospect and College Streets. Our regular opening hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM and we have extended hours until 6:00 p.m. weekdays and from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sundays with limited services; we are closed on Saturdays and holidays. Researchers will need to present a photo ID in order to use our collections, and will be asked to complete an Application to Use Brown University Library Manuscripts.

We caution patrons that, given the sheer volume of the collection and the limited staff at the John Hay Library, we are unable to do in-depth research for patrons. Further, owing to the sheer size and current lack of arrangement within the collection at present, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to find particular items that patrons request based on the existing finding aid, which can best be described as rudimentary. Researchers are welcome to come look at the finding aid for themselves, and our staff will attempt to retrieve the materials identified from that. To assist patrons in answering some standard inquiries, we provide some further information below.

In order to ensure that a patron's research experience at the John Hay Library is as fruitful as possible, we ask that patrons contact us two weeks in advance of their planned research visit, so that we can ensure the appropriate staff are available to assist them in finding materials from the Gorham Collection.

Unfortunately, apart from the images that appear in the online exhibition, no portion of the collection has yet been digitized.

HISTORICAL NOTE

Researchers should be advised that the Gorham Company Archive comprises a massive collection of documents, catalogs, photographs, drawings and objects. However, not all records of the company were preserved when it was downsized and moved away from Rhode Island in the early 1990s. Many important materials found their way into a dumpster before the Brown University Library was able to rescue them, and of the surviving records not all came to Brown. The first group of Gorham materials was donated to Brown in 1987 by Textron, Gorham's then owner.

Textron subsequently sold Gorham to the Brown-Forman Corporation, then owners of Lenox. (Textron made a significant gift of Gorham objects to the RISD Museum at the time of this sale). Brown-Forman later decided to close down Gorham's Rhode Island operations; when it did so, many significant elements of the Gorham Archive (including the Gorham design library), were taken to New York for use by Brown-Forman's Lenox subsidiary. Some of these materials were sent to Brown when Brown-Forman sold Lenox in the summer of 2005, but others (including the design library) went to the RISD Library. Some Gorham archival materials may have been lost in the various corporate and physical moves between 1987 and 2005, when Brown-Forman made its major donation of the remaining portions of the Gorham Company Archive to the Brown University Library.

SILVER MARKS

For information on Gorham silver marks, we recommend trying one of the following resources:

GORHAM CATALOGS

Researchers should note that Gorham produced its first catalog in 1880. There are no catalogs for Gorham products prior to that date.

The Gorham Archive contains a wide range of Gorham catalogs dating from 1880 to the 1990s. There is no finding aid for these, but Library staff will do their best to assist patrons looking for particular Gorham catalogs. Please note that a few early Gorham catalogs arrived at the Library as part of the Sidney S. Rider Collection on Rhode Island history, and others have recently been catalogued as part of a recent effort by the Brown University Library to make Gorham materials readily available for research use. These can now be found through JOSIAH, and can be retrieved for interested patrons to examine in the Reading Room of the Hay Library.

A digital reproduction of all available early Gorham catalogs between 1880 and 1909 has been produced in a set of 8 CD-ROMs, and the set is available for sale through Sam Hough at his bookshop, The Owl at the Bridge.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Requests for further information about the Gorham Archive at the Brown University Library, as well as for research appointments to view Gorham materials at the John Hay Library, should be directed to: Hay@brown.edu.