Rick Hamelin on fri 23 feb 07
Hi.
There is much to learn and teach of colonial redware.
I have spent over 27 years researching about redware and teaching it to the public.
You need not learn everything in preparation for your program. What you must acknowledge is that the most common questions will be about clay location, glaze (type, toxicity) and firing, local industry and manufacturing techniques. While I find it important to talk about the full American history, you really won't find many opportunities to do so as the crowd will tend to be repetitious in these questions. This is really too bad as the industrial changes approaching the Rev War period and then the period after 1810 are very interesting fdue to the technological changes and private business investment that took place. Lead-free glazes, experiments in various whitewares, stoneware, glass crucibles, brewery tiles, roof tiles and building bricks, distillery containers. There were many types of potters and clay workers producing many types of ware depending on the time period.
None-the-less, it is important to stress that because of the time period you are discussing, that you resist making all potters of the same mold. .
It is important to also recognize that a 17th century potter could be vastly different from a Rev Ware period potter-especially in this region.
Most potters need not advertise their wares for they were making for local consumption and there was a large mix of imported pottery to be used with pewter, tin, glass, iron, treenware, coopered ware, etc.
Pick up any book by Ivor Noel Hume to learn more about the archeological evidence and patterns of use as well as The Ceramics in America Series edited by Robert Hunter. Stadling's book is also good.
Hagerstown MD made some very beautiful slipware. It was yellow slip ware with green glaze brushmarks. I would recommend that you keep your emphasis on the Maryland wares so that you plant a seed of interest and pride in your audience. http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/oct04/crocker1004.htm and http://antiquesandthearts.com/2003-07-29__14-00-10.html&page=2
Some Web resources are: http://www.daacs.org/aboutDatabase/pdf/stylistic/H-Q.pdf and http://www.corzilius.org/Narratives/PotteryInAmerica.htm and http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/usregcer.htm#Mid-Atlantic%20States
Good luck, have fun with this.
Rick Hamelin
--
"Many a wiser men than I hath
gone to pot." 1649
Rick Hamelin on sun 25 feb 07
Hi again.
I was rereading the postings and I thought perhaps I could be of help.
This subject has been romantically written (thus creating myths )about for decades and yet, little is known about the earliest colonial potters.
Early on, the England and Holland were interested in helping their manufacturers sell to the colonies (or what it have the colonists only buy from them?); so scouts were sent who explored and documented the timber, geological and animal inventories to supply the motherland. This is why some trades were forbidden. (It is also interesting to note that Wedgwood's earliest Queensware was possibly made of North Caroline kaolin). Remember the kings marking on ship mast timbers?
Most pottery was imported here, and would include all types of european wares.
The earliest recorded colonial potter in America was here in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1640 yet Jamestown Virginia archeological evidence for a working pottery site was found for the period of 1625-50. . It would be wonderful for me to easily pick up a Directory of Potters for 1678 but there are no existing logs. For instance, Potters who owned land farmed and as landowners would be listed as Yeoman here in New England.
It is largely through secondary sources that you find references to a potter such as a diary description of visiting a shop or a store ledger marking an potters trade (or payment towards debt) of pottery for cloth and other staples.
It is wrong to make a rash statement that potters (or any clay working trade) didn't exist in an area. In truth, they were so part-time in their labor that they were lost to history.
I am confident that here in New England (or Maryland- whereever you are) you could find a clay related trade within 15 miles of town center, but remember these shops are the part time trades. Massachusetts had in the 1920's 3300 brickyards, yet by 1968 only three existed and today West Bridgewater has the only one remaining yard. I frequently hear surprise to this fact and this is what you must remember, clay is everywhere but it is the trade has changed. So, in ten years, perhaps we will lose this final brickyard and in 50 years people will comment that no such things were made here in Massachusetts.
Very few people understand that the clay trades are a very old trade in our country and including potters, brickyards, tile makers, malt house tile makers, distilling wares..
The need for pottery I believe was outweighed by the need for employment especially in the period of mass migration from 1710-60 and different types of potters from many areas came to ply their trade, some who worked for themselves or others and some travelled from town to town looking for work. Some of the greatest died and are buried in paupers graves.
Pottery factories were attempted in the mid-18th century by either investors and/or potters and generally they failed. Longevity and business success is very uncommon for full time potters. Yet, a few survived for over 100 years and other such as Norton, now Saint Gobain and Pfalzgraff still remain in some form.
The Craftsman in Early America by Quimby and American Redware by Ketchum are great books.
I must get to the wheel and work.
I hope that I helped in some way.
Rick
www.americanredware.com
--
"Many a wiser men than I hath
gone to pot." 1649
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