HANDCRAFT TO INDUSTRY Philadelphia Ceramics in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Susan H. Myers SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY • NUMBER 43 HANDCRAFT TO INDUSTRY Philadelphia Ceramics in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century Susan H. Myers SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS City of Washington 1980 ABSTRACT Myers, Susan H. Handcraft to Industry: Philadelphia Ceramics in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, number 43, 117 pages, 32 figures, 1980.—Early in the nineteenth century, Phila­ delphia potters, like many American craftsmen, began to feel the effects of nascent industrial and economic change that would transform small traditional hand­ crafts into industries. Economic historians long have debated about the rate at which expansion took place during the first half of the century. In the Philadel­ phia potteries, the beginnings of industrialization were evident in developments before and during the War of 1812 when embargoes provided temporary relief from the competition of English factory-made tableware and permitted American craftsmen briefly to emulate this mass-produced molded pottery. The crisis of 1819, however, and the economic fluctuations of the 1830s kept progress at a slow pace, though the depressions of the 1830s actually made an important, if negative, contribution by forcing out several of the city's traditional potteries and a substantial part of its handcraft labor force. In the 1840s, the environ­ ment finally was conducive to the exploitation of the growing potential for expansion and thus the decade witnessed unprecedented economic and industrial growth. Capitalization and output more than doubled; molded tableware, pat­ terned after Enghsh styles, finally was successfully manufactured and marketed; new and more industrial products and techniques were introduced; several small potteries developed into factories of moderate size; and a semiskilled labor force threatened its traditional highly skilled counterpart. By 1850 there were still some conservative shops in operation and the use of powered machinery remained in the future, but small potteries where family members and an apprentice or journeyman made simple products by age-old hand methods were dying phe­ nomena, progressively outnumbered by their industrial counterparts. The process of industrialization and economic expansion in the Philadel­ phia potteries is significant not only as part of the history of the trade in that city but also because comparison with available data suggests that the Philadel­ phia example reflects patterns of change over much of urban American pottery manufacture. In conservative rural areas change came more slowly but it appears that potters in other East Coast cities were affected by many of the same factors that influenced development in Philadelphia and that they responded in much the same way. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION DATE is handstamped in a limited number of copies and is recorded in the Institution's annual report, Smithsonian Year. COVER DESIGN: Abraham Miller factory, Callowhill Street, Philadelphia (see Figure 23). Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Myers, Susan H Handcraft to industry. (Smithsonian studies in history and technology ; no. 43) Bibliography: p. 1. Ceramic industries—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—History. 2. Potters—Pennsylvania—Phila­ delphia—History. I. Title. II. Series: Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian studies in history and technology; no. 43. HD9611.8P48M9 338.4'7'7380974811 78-13390 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, VS. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Contents Page Introduction 1 Abbreviations of Sources 2 Acknowledgments 2 The Effects of the War of 1812 3 The 1820s 15 More Clearly Defining the New Industry 22 A Period of Expansion 30 Conclusion 43 Appendix I: Checkhst of Philadelphia Potters, 1800-1850 50 Appendix II: Census Statistics on Manufactures 91 Appendix III: Potters' Inventories 97 Appendix IV: Exhibitions of American Manufacturing at the Franklin Institute 99 Notes 105 References Ill Frequently Consulted Sources 113 111 HANDCRAFT TO INDUSTRY Susan H. Myers development of American ceramics—industrializa­ Introduction tion, economic changes (both local and national), In the first half of the nineteenth century, urban developing technology,^ market demand, changing American manufacturing underwent a series of labor force, and the relationship of other manu­ changes that transformed many traditional hand­ factures to ceramic production—have received crafts into industries. Small family workshops were limited treatment in this context if they have been replaced by factories, hand processes were super­ considered at all. In short, ceramics have been seded by mechanized techniques, and semiskilled treated as a decorative or folk art rather than as an workers intruded upon the highly skilled tradi­ integral part of the development of American tional labor force. manufactures. This paper outlines the process of early nine­ Ceramics have been an important manufacture teenth-century industrialization in one area of in both rural and urban America from the earliest American manufacturing, ceramics, produced in a seventeenth-century settlements up to the present day. The almost endless range of products into representative urban center, Philadelphia, Penn­ which clay can be formed and the great variety of sylvania. It considers the effects of economic and purposes, both utilitarian and decorative, to which industrial changes during the first half of the cen­ it can be put, make ceramics a needed and valued tury on products, technology, shop organization, manufacture in almost every society. labor force, and profits in Philadelphia ceramics The history of American ceramics manufacture manufacture. up to the twentieth century loosely conforms to American ceramics generally have been studied three broad categories of development. either by collectors interested primarily in the most One is the handcraft tradition in which sturdy beautiful or unusual items or by historians of the pottery for use in the kitchen, dairy, or tavern was decorative arts concerned with the basic work of produced by age-old hand processes in small family documenting craftsmen and their characteristic operated potteries. This humble pottery was made products. Emphasis has been placed heavily on by the earliest colonists and continued to be made aesthetic merit, focusing attention either on the well into the nineteenth and, in some rural areas, "folk art" qualities of traditional household pottery even into the twentieth century. or the stylistic elements of more sophisticated re­ Another type of production, the industrial manu­ fined ceramics. Strictly utilitarian ceramics such as facture of decorative and table wares, was estab­ roof tiles, drain pipes, and fire bricks, which have lished in many urban potteries by 1850. Made no artistic pretentions, have been largely ignored largely in molds, ceramics of this more refined and consequently little is known about a very im­ type eventually were produced almost entirely by portant part of the potter's output. Many other mechanized processes in factories rather than family factors essential to a thorough analysis of the potteries. For several decades around midcentury, the handcraft and industrial traditions existed side Susan H. Myers, Department of Cultural History, National by side, though the latter progressively superseded Museum of History and Technology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560. the former. SMITHSONIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY Strictly utilitarian, nondecorative ceramics com­ within each group, the entries (arranged generally prise the third type of development. Such neces­ in chronological order) are numbered. Citations of sities as drain pipes and roof tiles were produced these sources employ the group abbreviation plus by traditional potteries throughout their history. the source's entry number in the list for its group. In industrial factories, however, the great poten­ References to the third edition of Edwin AtLee tial of ceramic materials was more fully exploited. Barber's landmark volume The Pottery and Porce­ The result was a proliferation of utilitarian prod­ lain of the United States are also made in shortened ucts: chimney flues and tops, stove tubes, cooking form. Abbreviations used in the notes, illustration furnaces, industrial fire-clay products, drain, sewer, credits, and appendices are as follows: and water pipe, chemical stoneware, druggists' ware such as mortars and pestles, ointment and pill pots, ACCP Archives of the City and County of Philadelphia and eventually sanitary ware, and electrical porce­ B Barber, Edwin AtLee. The Pottery and Porcelain of the United States, third edition, revised and lain. enlarged. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909 The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed CP City of Philadelphia many changes in all types of ceramic production. DMMC Joseph Downs Manuscript and Microfilm Collec­ Developments took place first in the cities, where tion. The Henry Frandis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Winterthur, Delaware the forces of industrialization were felt earliest. FIM manuscripts in the Archives of the Franklin In­ Philadelphia, with a long and active history of stitute, Philadelphia ceramics manufacture dating from the seventeenth FIP publications of the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia into the twentieth century, provides an excellent MC schedules