The enormous cargo aboard the SS Republic included a number of decorative wares produced at home and abroad. Some of the ornamental goods were especially functional, while others were luxury items designed to adorn and enhance peoples' homes.

This category includes porcelain figurines and decorative vases that most closely resemble products manufactured in provincial porcelain centers in France such as the 19th-century factories in Limoges and Vierzon, which mass produced relatively inexpensive goods for the American market.

Also represented among the decorative wares are several varieties of both blown and pressed glassware, the products of the burgeoning American glass industry, including individual glass lamp parts, at least one of which can be reasonably attributed to the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company of Massachusetts. The production of two of the richly adorned lamps, in particular, required extensive labor, thus making these luxury objects more expensive than most table lamps of the era.