New Jersey Ceramics Symposium

Filling America’s Cupboards:
New Jersey’s Nineteenth-Century Earthenwares

Saturday, April 9, 2005
9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
to be held at the New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place
Newark, New Jersey

Program Schedule

Program Summary

For a second year the Potteries of Trenton Society (POTS) will team with the New Jersey Historical Society (NJHS) to offer a day-long series of lectures on New Jersey’s ceramic industry. Filling America’s Cupboards: New Jersey’s Nineteenth-Century Earthenwares will bring together historians, archaeologists and collectors to discuss New Jersey’s nineteenth-century earthenware industry and its important role in supplying sturdy table, kitchen, and sanitary wares to America’s households. The program is open to the public.

Program Schedule

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Summary

Archaeologist Richard W. Hunter will present an overview of the earthenware industry in New Jersey, followed by art historian and collector Emma Lewis, who will give a virtual tour of “Fancy Rockingham,” an exhibition currently on view at the University of Richmond. Rockingham is the name for kitchen and table crockery with a mottled brown glaze that was popular in America from the 1840s to 1900. Historian Jane Claney, author of Rockingham Ware in American Culture 1830-1930, will examine the way mundane rockingham wares, such as cuspidors, pitchers, teapots and bowls, expressed cultural identity. Copies of her book, published in 2004 by the University Press of New England, will be available for purchase in the Society’s gift shop.

After a break for lunch, the symposium will resume in the afternoon when archaeologist Rebecca White will discuss the yellow ware industry in Trenton, followed by archaeologist William Liebeknecht, who will examine Trenton’s colorful majolica products, focusing on recent discoveries of the Mayer pottery. Historian Ellen Denker will finish the symposium by exploring the way independent china decorators across the country used the cream-colored earthenware blanks produced in Jersey City in the late 1800s.

The symposium will be held on Saturday, April 9, 2005, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the New Jersey Historical Society, 52 Park Place, Newark. Advance registration will be $20 for members of POTS and NJHS or $25 for the general public; on-site registration will be $30. This includes all lectures, a continental breakfast in the morning, and wine reception at the end of the day. For further information and travel directions, visit the website of the New Jersey Historical Society or call POTS president Patricia Madrigal at 609-695-0122.

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