Potteries of Trenton Society
New Jersey Historical Society
Announce
Third New Jersey Ceramics Symposium
“Infrastructure: Making Pots in Trenton, 1750-1950”
Saturday, April 8, 2006
9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
to be held at the New Jersey Historical Society
52 Park Place
Newark, New Jersey
For a third 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. “Infrastructure: Making Pots in Trenton,
1750-1950” will bring together historians, archaeologists and collectors to
discuss the nuts and bolts of making pottery as an industrial product from
the early days of James Rhodes’ stoneware and John McCully’s redware
potteries to John Maddock’s hotelware and Walter Lenox’s fine china
dinnerware in the twentieth century. If you ever wondered how your pots
were made, this is your opportunity to find out. The program is open to the
public.
Potter Mark Shapiro will demonstrate how the early potters produced vessels
on the potter’s wheel without benefit of the modern machinery in use today.
Jean-Pierre Dion, professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal and
author of several publications on Canadian potteries, will present “The
Potter’s Craft in a Changing Environment, 1800-1920,” an overview of the
potter’s work in preparing and manipulating the clay using the wide variety
of machines that were invented in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. In his talk, entitled “Movers and Shapers: Trenton’s Pottery
People, ca. 1750-1950,” archaeologist Richard W. Hunter will examine the
broad range of people involved in making Trenton’s pottery industry
successful, from owners and investors to clay diggers and salesmen, and take
a look at how the shops were organized to design and produce ware.
After a break for lunch, the symposium will resume in the afternoon when
archaeologist William Liebeknecht describes and compares some of the many
kilns used in Trenton from the eighteenth century through the twentieth in
his talk entitled “All Fired Up: Kilns for All Occasions.” Archaeologist
Rebecca White will take a look at kiln furniture, the critical large and
small pieces that separate and protect ceramic vessels during firing, in her
talk “Cones & Rings & Props, Oh My!: Interpreting Trenton’s Kiln Furniture.”
Historian Ellen Denker will finish the program with “In the Clay and Over
the Glaze: Decorating Trenton’s Pots, 1750-1950,” an exploration of the many
ways that Trenton’s pots were decorated from the incised and impressed
designs used by the early stoneware potters to the careful painting and
decal decorating that characterize modern dinnerware.
The symposium will be held on Saturday, April 8, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to
4:30 p.m. at the New Jersey Historical Society, 52 Park Place, Newark.
Advance registration is $20 for members of POTS and NJHS or $25 for the
general public. This includes the potter’s demonstration and all lectures,
a continental breakfast, and wine reception at the end of the day. For
registration information and travel directions, visit
www.potteriesoftrentonsociety.org
<BLOCKED::http://www.potteriesoftrentonsociety.org> . Advance
registration will be accepted by mail only with payment by check or money
order until April 1st. No telephone registrations can be accepted.
Admission without advance registration will be $30 for all at the door.
Please register early as seating is limited.
Patricia A. Madrigal
Principal Investigator/Business Manager
Hunter Research, Inc.
120 W. State Street
Trenton, NJ 08608
609-695-0122
609-695-0147 (fax)
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