Rockingham Ware in American Culture, 1830-1930: Reading Historical Artifacts (Paperback)

~ (Author) "This book, which describes the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century ceramic Rockingham ware, locates it in ceramics and design history, then explores its usage and cultural meaning,..." (more)
Key Phrases: translucent mottled brown, reading historical artifacts, hunt pitchers, East Liverpool, United States, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Grand resource for grand USA pottery."--Antique and Collectible News Service

"Claney does a service by writing about the value of using artifacts and documents interactively to get full use of both sources. This book is a terrific resource and a good example of data-driven resource."--IA: Journal of the Society for Industrial Archaeology

"Claney generously guides the reader through the process of her evolving research over a period of approximately twenty years. Those who have been frustrated by the lack of reliable scholarship on these ubiquitous brown pots (and other nineteenth-century wares) and eage to learn about new ways to think about them, will find Claney's often-first-person approach immediately satisfying."--Decorative Arts

"Claney shows how historical archaeology is the only resource for discovering the existence of symbolic meaning in the use of workaday vessels such as large Rockingham ware bowls. Her study helps to visualize the material life of the past and 'fill in the outlines of recorded memory.'"--Maine Antique Digest

Review

"Dr. Claney has devised a widely applicable method of interpretive, contextual material culture study. Moreover, she has demonstrated the power of the method in her exploration of Rockingham ware, an example of what Daniel Miller called the 'consumption trivia' of the Industrial Revolution, and James Deetz regarded as the 'small things forgotten' that accumulate to make a lifetime. Her masterful study is firmly grounded in the literature of historical archaeology, material culture study, and American cultural history, and represents a cross-disciplinary breadth that many scholars fail to achieve. The result is a study that smoothly and elegantly leads the reader through a massive compilation of material, archaeological, documentary, and graphic evidence to an understanding of the objects, the society that produced them, and the cultural contexts in which they carried meaning. A model of comparative, synthetic, object-based research, this study demonstrates the interpretive value of archaeological collections of fragmented objects housed in repositories around the world. It represents a compelling argument for the preservation, curation, and conservation of our material culture heritage." (Lu Ann De Cunzo, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Delaware )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: UPNE (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1584654120
• ISBN-13: 978-1584654124
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,029,211 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)