Homco Porcelain History

 

I’ve been listing quite a few Homco porcelain figurines and have more to list soon. I looked up the company history and here’s what I found.

‘Home Interiors & Gifts Inc.’ (short HomCo) was founded 1957 by Mary C. Crowley after years of struggling to make ends meet as a single mother of two children. She worked in the insurance industry and the furniture industry as a salesperson and bookkeeper. She moved to the home sales industry when she joined Stanley Home Products becoming a top salesperson, and subsequently moved to World Gifts becoming a leading salesperson and manager. She quit 1957 and then put together her savings with loans from friends and a bank loan of $6,000 to start her own company, ‘Home Interiors & Gifts’. The new company found an under-served niche as both sales force and its customers were mostly women with little education that were depending on their husbands, focused on their children and homes. Crowley simply understood what made these people tick and a Bible-inspired philosophy that made a moral good out of home beautification added to her success.

The corporate structure was similar to Mary Kay Cosmetics, Avon, Shaklee, and Amway and was a home sales industry company. This company acquired inexpensive items from Asian manufacturers and distributed them as low- to mid-priced items via their distribution network. HomCo maintained corporate headquarters in Carrollton, Texas, and had a Dallas-area warehouse and distribution center. The company ceased business in 2008 when it was acquired by ‘Home & Garden Party’ from Marshall, Texas.

By 1962, Home Interiors & Gifts had sales of $1 million and then continued to grow rapidly through the 1960s and 1970s. The company celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1983 and had grown to a behemoth with $400 million in sales. Home Interiors oversaw some 38,000 displayers and these hosted over 100,000 decorating parties every single week. The average displayer worked part time and brought in only about $3,500 annually in commissions for herself. The price of the Home Interiors line remained modest, with most items going for $10 or $15 – the most expensive item in the line was only $65 in 1983.

Source: Porcelain Marks and More