Fiesta: five colors and a red glaze that left and returned

By Rafe Calder

Fiesta dinnerware went on sale in 1936. It was bright, streamlined and meant to be mixed with other dishes. Its red was also made with uranium, and the sources are firm about that and loose about nearly everything that follows.

The plant

Wikipedia’s article on the Homer Laughlin company says the firm began in 1871 as Laughlin Brothers Pottery, a two-kiln operation in East Liverpool, Ohio, run by brothers Shakespeare and Homer Laughlin. It incorporated under the Homer Laughlin name in 1896, opened a 30-kiln plant in Newell, West Virginia, in 1903, and by 1929 made everything in West Virginia. In 2020, the article says, the firm sold its food service divisions and the Homer Laughlin name to Steelite International and renamed itself the Fiesta Tableware Company, keeping its retail line, factories and headquarters in Newell.

The designer and the debut

The Fiesta article on Wikipedia says the English potter Frederick Hurten Rhead, the company’s art director from 1927 until his death in 1942, designed the original shapes and glazes. It says the line was introduced in January 1936 at the Pottery and Glass Exhibit in Pittsburgh. The Cooper Hewitt design museum describes the style as simple art deco, streamlined, built around color, with concentric rings at the edges to soften the intensity of the glaze. The two Wikipedia articles differ on the title: the company article says Rhead was hired in 1927 and gives him no title. We leave it there.

Five colors, then six

The original palette, per Wikipedia and Oak Ridge Associated Universities, was red, cobalt blue, green, yellow and ivory. The museum and Wikipedia both say turquoise followed in 1938. Wikipedia says rose, gray, forest and chartreuse were added in 1950. The same article says the company had 40 glazes in production as of early 2026.

The red

The museum calls the red a brilliant orange-red and says it was costly, because firing it demanded strict control and some pieces were lost. All three sources say it relied on uranium oxide.

On how much, and in which colors, they differ. The Oak Ridge page, from a university consortium’s museum, says uranium oxide went into the original red glaze.

Three dates for the red’s disappearance

The Cooper Hewitt page says the U.S. government took control of uranium oxide in 1943 and the red was dropped. A 1989 column in the Straight Dope, a popular question-and-answer feature, also says 1943. Wikipedia says Fiesta red was discontinued in 1944. The Oak Ridge page points instead to the Atomic Energy Act of 1946, which it says ended private and commercial use of uranium, and says the red then vanished until 1959.

All agree on the return. In 1959, the museum says, the company was again licensed to buy uranium oxide, and Oak Ridge says depleted uranium replaced the natural kind. Wikipedia says the red was made until 1972. The museum says that when the line was restyled in 1969, red was the only original color still made.

The long pause

Wikipedia says the line was discontinued in January 1973 and stayed off the market until 1985. The museum says production was on hiatus from 1973 to 1985 and that the line was reintroduced in 1986, which Wikipedia ties to the fiftieth anniversary. Wikipedia says the new version used fully vitrified clay, so many shapes were redesigned and newer pieces are noticeably smaller. Oak Ridge says the 1986 revival used a lead-free body. Wikipedia says the original run was made with significantly high levels of lead in the glaze.

What the safety statements say

We are not giving advice. We are listing what each source says. Oak Ridge says the original plates are considered safe to use unless chipped or cracked, which it says raises exposure risk. Wikipedia says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency advises against using radioactive glazed ceramics for food or drink, and that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimated regular use could give a potential dose of about 0.4 millisieverts a year. The Straight Dope column calls the radiation extremely low and below normal background from rocks, a statement it makes without citing a measurement. It also says New York State’s health department warned in 1981 that uranium and lead could leach into food, especially acidic food, and that Homer Laughlin disputed the danger.

Side by side

Red dropped: 1943 (museum, Straight Dope), 1944 (Wikipedia), after 1946 (Oak Ridge).
Uranium in the original glazes: all colors (Oak Ridge), red plus detectable amounts in others (Wikipedia).
Red’s last year: restyled in 1969 (museum), made until 1972 (Wikipedia).

Questions a buyer would ask

Which color is it? Which era? Wikipedia says vintage pieces, through 1973, are semi-vitreous with a semi-opaque, eggshell-like glaze that sometimes shows glaze curtains, while modern pieces have a smoother, harder, much glossier glaze.

What kind of sources these are

A university consortium’s museum page (Oak Ridge Associated Universities) and a national design museum’s object note about one pitcher. Neither is a regulator’s own report.