American Potters and Pottery

John Ramsay

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Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528760645
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

AMERICAN POTTERS and POTTERY
by
JOHN RAMSAY

ILLUSTRATED
C OPYRIGHT 1947, BY
JOHN RAMSAY
All rights reserved-no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connections with a review written for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC., CLINTON, MASS.
FOR
HOMER EATON KEYES
MY ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE DEBT DUE HIM FROM ALL STUDENTS OF AMERICAN CRAFTS
INTRODUCTION
WRITING this book has been a very pleasant experience. Difficulties of all sorts have been met, and the arrangement of so much heterogeneous material into a clear and readable study brought on several headaches. But it has been, on the whole, interesting work, although the final result is hardly as complete and comprehensive as I would like. The mere listing of twelve hundred makers of pottery, and of a hundred types and variations of the ware, with some description of their technical characteristics and processes of manufacture, threatens to make a rather ponderous tome, so that the complete story of American pottery may have to wait until someone has time and patience to write two more volumes.
If this single volume were meant to be a study of the manufacture of pottery, it would be necessary to preface it with an apology. If it were intended as a history of the pottery industry of the United States, further apologies would be in order. Since I have written from the standpoint of a collector of pottery, both subjects have been considered, but topics of considerable historical and technical significance have been compressed into very small space, because their interest to the collector is slight, while other material, which does interest collectors, has been expanded to what may seem, to others, unreasonable length. Thus collectible pottery-its types, manufacture and makers-is considered in detail, while other wares, as well as much early and recent ceramic history, are covered only sketchily.
A great deal of the material included is necessarily a r sum of what has already been published on the subject of American pottery. In this, I have been able to include and correlate much which has appeared only in periodicals, or has been buried in reports and publications not available to the casual reader. Some practical knowledge of the processes of manufacture, and the ownership of several hundred examples of American pottery, plus, of course, thorough examination of hundreds, not to say thousands, more, has helped me to put the technical data into fairly understandable shape. This technical information is really necessary for a thorough knowledge of the subject, but its scientific terminology requires careful translation for the non-technical reader. In this, as in the historical outline, I have been able to add to, and even correct, previously published material, but have tried to do this tactfully. Any reader who knows this previous work will recognize my emendations and corrections, with my authorities for them in important cases, but I have found no reason to write in controversial style.
The two check-lists are possibly the most important sections of the book, and its strongest claim to a place on the collector s shelf. Neither is complete, although that of pottery types must be nearly so. The list of potters and potteries has involved a great deal of work, and still shows unavoidable blanks. But a complete and accurate study of any one of our early potteries includes a tremendous amount of research-historical, genealogical, technical and even archeological. Local records have to be searched for names and dates, and excavation of the site is often the only way to determine the types of ware made there. All this has been done by many investigators, but, after forty years of such work, less than three hundred potteries, many quite unimportant, have been so completely documented. Consequently, I have felt justified in including less definite information on five hundred more.
This check-list has been intended to include the location of each pottery, the name of the owner or potter and his successors, the dates of foundation, of any changes in ownership, and of the final closing. To these facts are added the types of ware made, with any makers marks used, or any distinguishing characteristics, and such pertinent facts as can be stated briefly, with occasional references to the text. This standard has been impossible to maintain, so all potteries for which approximate dates and production data are available have been included. As it happens, the most difficult date to pin down is that of the final closing of a pottery. So many of them were operated as side lines by farmers or small business men that, unless terminated by fire or flood, they just petered out over a period of years.
The list of pottery marks is entirely tentative. The statement no mark in the check-list itself means only that no mark used by that maker is known to the writer or the authorities on whom he depends, but there are only a few cases in which this statement can be definite. Absolute it can never be, since the individual potter might always be seized by a whim to inscribe his name on the soft clay of a piece he had just made. Marks in general are the most difficult to locate of all the information I have tried to compile. Most histories, particularly the technical and geological ones, omit any mention of them, so that I have had to depend largely on examination of the ware itself. This again is difficult, since very few potteries marked their entire output, and many, of course, never used any formal mark. On the other hand, the existence of a piece marked with its maker s name is conclusive evidence of his existence, and a number of potters are included in the check-list on that evidence alone.
The information included in the list, and consequently in the text, has come from many sources. Previously published books and articles, which are listed in the bibliography, are naturally the sources for much of it. John Spargo s Early American Pottery and China is the most complete from the collector s standpoint, but Ries and Leighton s, Barber s and Jervis books have also been most helpful. These have been supplemented by many local histories, which usually mention their first potter , but are distressingly vague about his products and his successors. Again, early directories and the files of old newspapers, usually tedious but in this case fascinating reading, have added many details. Finally, various reports of federal and state Geological Surveys have occasional paragraphs on early potteries, and odd bits of information have been picked up here and there, from marked examples of pottery, local traditions, even old grave-stones. These have been fitted together like picture puzzles, so that the complete history of a particular pottery, given in the text or outlined in the check-list, may have been gathered from half a dozen sources. Exact references to these sources, either in the text or as foot-notes, have been almost entirely omitted, largely because of the amount of space they would require.
This work is, unfortunately, decidedly spotty , practically complete for some sections of the country, and sadly incomplete in others. This, of course, is due entirely to the amount of research which has been carried on. I have been able to work only in territory which has already been adequately covered, rather than in those states where really important material remains to be developed. Yet the government census of 1840 states that the county in which I have spent four years had eleven potteries in that year. I have been able to locate only six, with two additional possibilities, which seems a fair indication of the extent to which the industry as a whole has been documented. So far as the industry itself is concerned, it has been difficult or impossible to secure information from those connected with it today, either in the field of production or research. Dr. Ries, writing in 1908 after a similar search for material, comments on the startling lack of knowledge in nearly all quarters , and the same condition seems even more startling thirty years later.
For those sections which are really adequately covered, I have to thank many people. In addition to the books already mentioned, Dr. Stout s monograph on the clay industries of Ohio, Dr. Weygandt s The Red Hills and Mr. Belknap s study of the artists and craftsmen of Essex County, Massachusetts have been particularly valuable. For more personal, and more valued assistance, I am greatly indebted to Mrs. Knittle for her contributions on the Ohio potteries; to Mr. Reinert, who has given me more unpublished material than anyone else; and to Dr. Weygandt again, for material on the eastern Pennsylvania potteries; to Mrs. Buxby for additional data on the long story of the industry in Essex County, and to Dr. Norton for other information on New England; to Mr. Mallory and Mr. Van Huyning for their help in the problem of Southern pottery; and, for additional information, Miss Anna Nixon, Mrs. Charles H. Watkins, Miss Mabel Weber, Mr. George L. Whitlach, Mr. Walter J. Sparks, Mr. J. J. Dronenburg, Mr. George S. McKearin, Mr. Richard C. Smith, Mr. Eugene Houghton, Mr. W. T. B. Gordy. In fact, I have been asking questions about pottery for so many years that I cannot remember all the kindly people I have pestered. I do remember, gratefully, that, while some of those who might reasonably have been expected to show some interest failed me, many others went out of their way to help. Much technical information, as well as historical data, has come from Mr. Reinert, and finally, I very gratefully remember the late Mr. Homer Eaton Keyes, editor of Antiques , without w