The descent of fine ceramics down the scale in a plantation has been
well documented. House servants got the leftovers of the master's
table settings. In one plantation site, we found loads of Chinese
export porcelain on the slave quarters.

Josiah Wedgwood is credited with creating the idea of fashionable
"sets" of ceramic styles in order to create fashion-driven turnover
at the top of his line. This seems to be supported by the
archaeological evidence.

But, and this is a big but: when did the idea of "sets" catch on?

Here in Delaware, it is traditional for people to buy used ceramics
that match their "sets" of dinnerware.  My mother would buy whatever
blue willow came to hand, which is why I have a "set" that spans a
century or more. Her Haviland, on the other hand, never shows up at
flea markets in odd pieces. I believe we have found one loose piece
in the past half century. Does this mean that fine china, as opposed
to the ordinary stuff, tends to move in sets within families?

Another factor is the possibility of differentially breaking certain
classes of pieces, while other pieces survive. Shell-edge pearlware
platters, for example, are relatively common in the flea markets and
auctions, but I can't recall ever seeing shell-edge platters or
saucers from individual services. The conclusion, to me, is that the
serving dishes stay in the cupboards, while the dishes and cups are
in constant use and get used up. I have a well-documented
transfer-printed pearlware set that is very short on dishes and
saucers, but has all its serving pieces and a large portion of its
cups.

At a low-status eighteenth-century site, we found a certain creamware
pattern that apparently was collected by the occupant. The pieces
were from many different sources, of varying quality, but they
"matched" to the extent that they all followed a single pattern.  Had
Josiah Wedgwood's concept of style reached down to subsistence
farmers in rural Delaware by the end of the eighteenth century? We
have evidence that this was the case. This individual apparently went
out to assemble a "set" in spite of his or her financial inability to
buy a barrel of matching china at one swoop.
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