A Porcelain Occupational Shaving Mug Depicting a Railway Express Co. Truck

Early 20th Century

bearing the name Redamus Mengozzi in gilt lettering against a magenta wrap, and depicting a gentleman driving a truck labeled Railway Express Co.

underside marked Royal China International.

Height 3 5/8 inches.

City Directories from Orange, New Jersey record a Redamus Mengozzi working as a hatter on Liberty Street from 1927 until 1930. He was born around 1904 in New Jersey to Italian immigrant Alphonsina "Fonzina" Mengozzi. By 1910, Fonzina married her second husband, Carmino Battista, himself a finisher in a hat factory, when Mengozzi was still a young boy. Mengozzi died in East Orange on January 9, 1940. Any connections between this Redamus Mengozzi and the Railway Express Company, established as the American Railway Express Agency in 1918 and renamed by 1929, remain unfounded.