Stoneware Jar
date: label: date made
content: 1827-28
notes: label: Description
content: This salt-glazed jar was made by D. Roberts & Co. at the Fayette Stoneware Factory in Utica, New York, about 1827-1828. This firm was the third to open in Utica, an important commercial center on the Erie Canal. In a busy agricultural region, Utica was a major marketing town and the most significant center for pottery production in the upper Mohawk Valley. The Fayette Stoneware Factory produced some of the best early stoneware in Utica.
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 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.
place: label: place made
content: United States: New York
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: Work
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content: Industry & Manufacturing
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: 1977.0803.89
label: accession number
content: 1977.0803
label: catalog number
content: 1977.0803.89
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Jar
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: 10 1/4 in; 26.035 cm