The 2023 volume of Ceramics in America is filled with content of interest to students of American ceramics history. The articles cover a wide range of topics and regions, including ceramics made in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia. Of particular importance is the analysis of a small porcelain snuff box from the so-called “A”-marked group of porcelains made in London ca. 1745 from china clay obtained in America’s Cherokee Territory. A featured essay on the remarkable ceramics of John Wesley Carpenter offers for the first time an in-depth look at this nineteenth-century potter, who worked in the back country of North Carolina and Virginia. Several articles present thematic discussions about historic ceramics made and used to promote the abolition of slavery in both America and England. The use of ceramics to effect social change continues to this day, as is illustrated in the words and works of ceramic artist David Mack of Baltimore, Maryland.
Southern Hoodoo and the Dr. Peter Davis Ring Bottle
Robert Hunter
"From Death to Life": Slavery and Emancipation in the British West Indies as Revealed on a Child's Plate
Daniel S. Sousa
Geochemical Investigation of a Ceramic Snuff Box: ‘A’-Mark English Porcelain Attribution confirmed
W. Ross Ramsay, Howell G. M. Edwards, Errol Manners, and Ashley Howkins
Earth, Fire, and the Abolitionist: The Emancipation of Clay for Social Change
David Mack
Hidden Histories: The Case of Elijah Lovejoy and the Production of Anti-slavery Ceramics
Neil Ewins
English Delft for Colonial Tavern Tables in King William County and Williamsburg, Virginia
Elizabeth Donison, Ned Rose and Angelika Kuettner
The Commodore, the President, and the Birth of the United States Navy: A Tale of Two Chinese Porcelain Punch Bowls
Amanda Creekman Isaac and Captain Charles T. Creekman
Souvenirs of Fantasy: George Ohr’s Clay Tokens
Ellen J. Lippert
John Wesley Carpenter: Tradition, Innovation, and Adaptation in a Shattered Post-Civil War South
Stephen Compton
At the End of a Rope: A Stoneware Jar and Political Frustration
Elyse D. Gerstenecker, Robert Hunter, and Kurt Russ
A Chelsea Keramic Art Works Vase with a Portrait of William Lloyd Garrison
James Kaufman
Robert Hunter is an archaeologist and ceramics historian living in Williamsburg, Virginia. He is an elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Ronald Fuchs II is the senior curator of ceramics at the Reeves Museum of Ceramics, Washington and Lee University. He resides in Lexington, Virginia.
