{"version":1,"tree":{"n":"html","c":[{"n":"head","x":"\n ","l":"\n ","c":[{"n":"title","x":"Desconocido","l":"\n \n "},{"n":"link","l":"\n","a":[["rel","stylesheet"],["type","text/css"],["href","../../stylesheet.css"]]},{"n":"link","l":"\n","a":[["rel","stylesheet"],["type","text/css"],["href","../../page_styles.css"]]}]},{"n":"body","a":[["class","calibre"]],"c":[{"n":"div","x":"| ","a":[["class","calibre_navbar"]],"c":[{"n":"a","x":"Siguiente","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["rel","articlenextlink"],["data-xQvX3JSyyUS4yAvbblzwf5","{\"name\": \"feed_8/article_3/index_u20.html\", \"frag\": \"\"}"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú de sección","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-xQvX3JSyyUS4yAvbblzwf5","{\"name\": \"feed_8/index_u72.html\", \"frag\": \"article_2\"}"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú principal","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-xQvX3JSyyUS4yAvbblzwf5","{\"name\": \"index_u63.html\", \"frag\": \"feed_8\"}"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Anterior","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["rel","articleprevlink"],["data-xQvX3JSyyUS4yAvbblzwf5","{\"name\": \"feed_8/article_1/index_u51.html\", \"frag\": \"\"}"]]},{"n":"hr","l":"\n","a":[["class","calibre6"]]}]},{"n":"div","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]],"c":[{"n":"div","x":"Replacement rate","a":[["class","calibre8"]]},{"n":"h1","x":"A social history of America in a warehouse","a":[["class","calibre9"]]},{"n":"div","x":"Replacements, in Greensboro, is an encyclopaedia of tableware","a":[["class","calibre19"]]},{"n":"p","x":"may. 08, 2025 01:49 | Greensboro, NORTH CAROLINA","a":[["class","calibre10"]]},{"n":"div","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]],"c":[{"n":"img","a":[["src","images/img1_u34.jpg"],["title","Plates at Replacements limited in North Carolina."],["class","calibre3"],["data-calibre-src","feed_8/article_2/images/img1_u34.jpg"]]}]},{"n":"div","x":"It was a theme she had","a":[["class","calibre11"]]},{"n":"p","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"R","a":[["data-caps","initial"],["class","calibre13"]]},{"n":"span","x":"EPLACEMENTS IS","l":" a one-of-a-kind business. Walk into the 500,000 square-foot tableware emporium near Greensboro, North Carolina, and you will find a display of America’s 500 most popular dinner plates from the past two centuries. Some are decorated with a classic lace trim; others with garish peacocks and florals. This is just a small selection of their stock. Smashed one of the crystal goblets your mum gave you in the 1980s? They can sell you a replacement. Always coveted your great-grandmother’s teacups but a greedy aunt snatched them after she died? They can probably send you an exact set.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"The store has 11m pieces of inventory—300,000 unique patterns—and ships 2,000 packages a day. An army of 455 independent buyers scavenge the country’s estate sales, antique stores and flea markets to find them. Florida has the best goods. “It’s a retirement Mecca, and when people downsize they bring their china,” says Keith Winkler, the shop’s head marketer. Consumer taste is less regional. Replacements’ top selling line, an English pattern with ornate animal portraits, does as well in Texas as it does in California and New York.","a":[["class","calibre12"]]},{"n":"p","x":"The store’s inventory is more than merchandise; it traces the social history of china in America. During the depression consumers bought basics, but by mid-century the industry got playful. In 1946 Libbey Glass started selling “hostess sets” that included tumblers with carnival and merry-go-round motifs. The post-war designs “promised the good life to a population tired of rations,” writes Regina Lee Blaszczyk, a historian. In 11 years Libbey sold 30m. But when foreign trade deals introduced Americans to cheap ceramics from Europe and Asia, domestic manufacturing slumped. Between 1947 and 1961 the industry contracted by 50%. Potters begged Congress to raise tariffs, to no avail.","a":[["class","calibre12"]]},{"n":"p","x":"During the cold war cultural conservatism caught on. Marriage rates rose from 60% in 1940 to 68% in 1960. More weddings meant more demand for place settings, and American firms pounced. Lenox China, a company that devised the wedding registry in the 1930s, advertised to wannabe-brides in ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"i","x":"Seventeen","l":" magazine with the slogan “You get the licence, I’ll get the Lenox”. To newly-weds who moved into suburban homes with money from the ","a":[["class","calibre18"]]},{"n":"span","x":"GI","l":" bill, functionality mattered too. Corning Glass started selling Pyrex casserole dishes that could go from fridge-to-oven-to-table. By the mid-1960s most of America’s fine china was sold on the bridal market.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"Today couples marry later and often want espresso machines and KitchenAids rather than tea sets. According to the Knot, a wedding website, last year just 11% registered for fine china. During the pandemic Libbey and Lenox closed their only remaining American factories.","a":[["class","calibre12"]]},{"n":"p","x":"Despite the dwindling market for new stuff, Replacements hopes for a resurgence of the old. Their typical customer is a woman in her 60s, but they are pitching to youngsters: use those inherited dishes and don’t fret if you break them. They now stock Anthropologie patterns and point to a Taylor Swift video that features 1970s Corelle “Butterfly Gold” dinner plates to prove that vintage is in. On a thread about dusty china, one Reddit user urged others not to drop their finest at the thrift shop. She recently started using her grandparents’ brown Pfaltzgraff bowls, which go for $15.99 at Replacements. “I am enjoying the hell out of them now on a daily basis,” she wrote, “even for Fruity Pebbles.” ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"■"}]},{"n":"p","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"i","x":"Stay on top of American politics with ","a":[["class","calibre18"]],"c":[{"n":"a","x":"The ","l":", our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and ","a":[["href","https://www.economist.com/newsletters/us-in-brief"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"US ","l":"in brief","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"a","x":"Checks and Balance","l":", a weekly note from our Lexington columnist that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.","a":[["href","https://www.economist.com/newsletters/checks-and-balance"]]}]}]}]},{"n":"div","x":"\n","a":[["class","calibre_navbar"]],"c":[{"n":"hr","l":"\n","a":[["class","calibre6"]]},{"n":"p","x":"This article was downloaded by ","l":"\n","a":[["class","calibre16"]],"c":[{"n":"strong","x":"calibre","l":" from ","a":[["class","calibre13"]]},{"n":"a","x":"https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/05/08/a-social-history-of-america-in-a-warehouse","a":[["href","https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/05/08/a-social-history-of-america-in-a-warehouse"],["rel","calibre-downloaded-from"]]}]},{"n":"br","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]]},{"n":"br","l":" | ","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú de sección","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-xQvX3JSyyUS4yAvbblzwf5","{\"name\": \"feed_8/index_u72.html\", \"frag\": \"article_2\"}"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú principal","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-xQvX3JSyyUS4yAvbblzwf5","{\"name\": \"index_u63.html\", \"frag\": \"feed_8\"}"]]}]}]}]},"ns_map":["http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"]}