American Toby Jug Museum 

Jesse Owens character jug modeled by Stanley J. Taylor and produced by Royal Doulton of Burslem, England, as the 1996 Character Jug of the Year. James Cleveland Owens (1913-1980) became a well-known high school track star, followed by attending Ohio State University where he set numerous records. The Olympic games of 1936 were held in Nazi Germany where Adolph Hitler intended to showcase his blond, blue-eyed German athletes as the epitome of Aryan superiority and dominance. He wanted also to underscore the supposed inferiority of African-American athletes. With the whole world watching, Owens' triumphs in track and field events made him a hero in American sports history. Jesse won gold medals in the one-hundred-meter dash, the long jump, a relay race, and the 200-meter dash in which he set a world record. After the Olympics, Owens ran professionally in various exhibitions and started his own public relations firm. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush posthumously awarded Jesse Owens the Congressional Medal of Honor for his achievements at the Berlin Olympics, calling them "a triumph for all humanity." This jug celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of Owens' impressive Olympic feat and the centenary of the modern Olympic Games. An American flag wrapped around an Olympic torch form the handle of the jug.