Stoneware Water Cooler
date: label: date made
content: 1825-1847
notes: label: Description
content: The presence of nearby stoneware clays gave rise to the New York state salt-glazed stoneware tradition that, by the early 1800s, developed in villages and towns along the Hudson River. Shipped upriver, the clay returned downstream after being transformed into useful ceramic vessels. With the Erie Canal completion in 1825, stoneware production extended its range to meet the increased flow of perishable goods from the Great Lakes region.
label: Description
content: Stoneware clay, when fired to a temperature of about 2100 degrees F, vitrifies into a highly durable ceramic material that holds liquids and keeps perishable contents cool. Stoneware potters in America, many of them immigrants from Germany and the Netherlands, maintained their European tradition of throwing coarse salt into the kiln. The salt melts in the heat and forms a pitted glassy surface on the vessels, which would otherwise be a dull grey.
label: Description
content: The production of these sturdy salt-glazed containers declined following improvements in tinning and canning perishable foodstuffs. In the late 1850s, the glass Mason canning jar entered the market, after which the potteries lost much of the demand for food storage containers that sustained so much of their production.
label: Description
content: This salt-glazed stoneware cooler, with a swordfish and beehive design, was made by Moses Tyler and Charles Dillon in Albany, New York. First listed in the 1825 Albany directory, Moses Tyler & Company operated on Washington Street, where it remained after Charles Dillon became a partner in 1826. Tyler and Dillon produced stoneware and portable furnaces. Charles Dillon left the firm in 1834. On his own, Tyler continued to produce stoneware vessels and firebricks until 1847.
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York, Albany
topic: label: related event
content: Expansion and Reform
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Food
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Domestic Furnishings
label: Exhibition
content: On the Water
label: Exhibition Location
content: National Museum of American History
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1977.0803.59
label: accession number
content: 1977.0803
label: catalog number
content: 1977.0803.59
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Water Cooler
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, blue (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, stoneware, coarse (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 15 1/2 in; 39.37 cm