The article the Rob Hunter referred to is "A Cache of eighteenth Century
Flowerpots from Williamsburg" by William Pittman and Robert Hunter that was
published in*  Ceramics in America* 2003, pages 208-212.
Another article on flower pots is "The Making of a Flower Pot" by Bessie
Buxton which was published in *The Magazine Antiques* and reprinted in *The
Art of the Potter: Redware and Stoneware* Edited by Diana and J. Garrison
Stradling, pages 148-149, Antiques Magazine Library, Main Street/Universe
Books, no publishing date listed.

Arthur E. James's book *The Potters and Potteries of Chester County,
Pennsylvania* reprinted by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 1978 has a history of
the Darlington Cope pottery that for several generations of potters  made
flowerpots and there is some price list information.  See pages 54-63.

Peace,
George L. Miller



On Sat, Dec 29, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Suzanne Spencer-Wood
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Context makes all the difference.
> regards,
> suzanne
>
>
> On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 8:47 PM, David W Babson <[log in to unmask]
> >wrote:
>
> > In Syracuse, New York, I live in an apartment complex built in the mid
> > 1960s, next to a public-memorial/park style cemetery that has been in use
> > since the 1840s.  The dominant artifacts in drip lines and other erosion
> > features around the apartments are sherds of window glass and terra-cotta
> > flower pots, along with a smaller amount of glazed, white earthenwares
> and
> > more vitreous wares.  A local acquaintance, who grew up in Syracuse and
> > remembered the city from the late 1930s, told me that the apartment site
> > held a large, commercial greenhouse before construction of the
> apartments.
> >  The greenhouse's market was people buying flowers to memorialize loved
> > ones buried in the cemetery.  I'll hazard a guess, and say that the white
> > earthenware/vitreous wares sherds are from "florist" vases, intended for
> > use as containers for the memorial flowers.  (The more "refined" sherds I
> > have seen are small, and usually degraded; I haven't examined them
> closely
> > enough to begin to determine vessel
> >   forms.)  Extrapolating, I connect this to funeral customs, and the
> > 19th-century park-cemetery movement, and do not see these artifacts as,
> > directly, gendered.  This may be a case of incomplete context, as I do
> not
> > have information as to the gender, age, or ethnicity of the owner of or
> > workers in the greenhouse.  But, I would say that this context (during
> the
> > first half of the 20th century) was primarily commercial.
> >
> > D. Babson.
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Suzanne
> > Spencer-Wood [[log in to unmask]]
> > Sent: Friday, December 28, 2012 7:57 PM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: Flower pots
> >
> > Hello Jay,
> > I have inferred the meaning of flowerpots in the dominant gender
> > ideology from the most popular domestic manual of the second half of the
> > 19th century - The American Woman's Home by Catharine Beecher and her
> > famous sister Harriet Beecher Stowe. They designed and advocated a home
> > conservatory in a parlor bay window, with plants of various sizes in
> > flowerpots,as well as a terrarium, to bring a family's children into
> > contact with the morally reforming influence of God's natural world,
> which
> > was associated with women. Beecher and Stowe were among the reform women
> I
> > call domestic reformers because they valorized women's supposed innate
> > superior morality due to the closeness of women and their domestic sphere
> > to nature, removed from men's public capitalist sphere that permitted the
> > biblical sins of usury, price gouging, and labor exploitation, which were
> > all illegal in the theocracy of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Some
> domestic
> > reformers created children's gardens and playgrounds, as well as prison
> > gardens (currently reviving), to morally reform juveniles and prisoners
> by
> > bringing them into contact with God's natural world, which was associated
> > with women in the dominant gender ideology.
> >
> > The inference about the meaning of flowerpots is made in the following
> > publication:
> >
> > Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M. 1999    The World Their Household: Changing
> > Meanings of the Domestic Sphere in the Nineteenth Century.  In *The
> > Archaeology of Household Activities,* edited by Penelope M. Allison. Pp.
> > 162-89. Routledge, London.    flowerpot meaning on p. 183
> >
> > The moral meaning of nature motivating reform women to create green
> spaces
> > such as children's gardens and playgrounds in men's "sinful cities of
> > stone" is in:
> >
> > Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M. 2003. Gendering the Creation of Green Urban
> > landscapes in America at the Turn of the Century.  In *Shared Spaces and
> > Divided Places. Material Dimensions of Gender Relations and the American
> > Historical Landscape*, edited by D.L. Rotman and E. Savulis. Pp. 24-61.
> > Knoxville, U. of Tennessee Press.
> >
> > I would be very interested to know if you find more about the meaning of
> > gardens at asylums. I was the outside reviewer on Susan Piddock's PhD
> > dissertation.
> >
> > regards,
> >
> > suzanne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Stottman, Michael J <[log in to unmask]
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > I am looking for any information on studies of flower pots.  In
> > > particular, I am trying locate good resources on the history of terra
> > cotta
> > > flower pots and relationship of size to use.  Also I am looking for
> info
> > on
> > > greenhouse heating systems.  The session at the SHA conference in
> > Baltimore
> > > last year was very good and I have some great resources from the
> histarch
> > > discussion of greenhouses and orangeries a couple of years ago, but I
> am
> > > looking more specifically at the mid to late nineteenth century and
> > within
> > > an institutional context.  I am working on a greenhouse at the Eastern
> > > State Lunatic Asylum in Lexington, Kentucky where I have brick
> > foundations,
> > > trench features associated with a heating system (seems to be for
> hearth
> > > and ash clean-out), and thousands of terra cotta flower pot sherds of
> > > various sizes.  I am looking to relate these resources to nineteenth
> > > century philosophies of architectural and landscape designs for
> asylums,
> > > such as the Kirkbride model and to treatment philosophies (I have Susan
> > > Piddock's edited volume and diss.).  Any suggestions for historical
> > > references or archaeological studies of flower pots and greenhouses
> would
> > > be much appreciated, I am trying make sure I am not missing anything.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance,
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Jay
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > M. Jay Stottman
> > > Staff Archaeologist
> > > Kentucky Archaeological Survey
> > >
> >
>