Ask Brownstoner: How Can I Find Out More About the Brooklyn Casserole Company?

Brownstoner often gets inquiries from readers asking for more information about the age, style or architect of a particular building, the background of a history-making Brooklynite or the architectural history of a neighborhood. While we can’t conduct in-depth research for every intriguing question, we can provide a bit of background and some research tips to guide the curious.

Reader: I am trying to find the history of the American Casserole Company of Brooklyn to connect a bit of history to each of our family’s artifacts. I have searched online but found no reference to it.

Brownstoner: While the circa 1920s box you have is labeled with the name American Casserole Company, a bit of digging into some online newspaper archives like the the Brooklyn Newsstand via the Brooklyn Public Library and specialty trade magazines shows the company may have been known by a slightly different name. Trade magazines — which were popular with industries large and small — can be a great way to track down information although a bit more challenging for online hunting. Many can be found via a Google book search and via Internet Archive, which has a particularly strong collection of architectural trade catalogs.

In this instance a clue turned up in a 1921 issue of Crockery and Glass Journal, which included a blurb noting that a new concern, the American Casserole Specialty Company of Brooklyn, was producing heavy nickel plate stands or frames with pierced designs that held Pyrex glass dish inserts. In newspaper accounts of the 1920s, the company name also appears as the American Casserole and Specialty Company. Using all of the variants of the name in your online sleuthing might turn up more information.

A look through the digitized Brooklyn city directories places the company at 46 Walworth Street in Bed Stuy in 1924. By 1929, the company had moved a short distance away to 367-369 Park Avenue in Clinton Hill. Dig through more directories and you might be able to create a trail of the company’s history in Brooklyn.

The company appears to have been in business in Brooklyn at least until 1960 when they advertised a brass warmer stand in Billboard magazine.

To track down some further information about your specific dish, which is divided and likely meant to hold relishes or candy, you might want to do an online search through the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass, which has a number of metal casserole holders in its collection.

[Photos by Susan De Vries unless noted otherwise]

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