Newcomb Pottery-nope & yes !

Sorry to disappoint,didn't find a vase for a quarter,but this is interesting:

Newcomb College was founded expressly to instruct young Southern women in liberal arts. The art school opened in 1886,the production of for-profit art pottery began in 1895 under the supervision Professors William Woodward, Ellsworth Woodward, and Mary Given Sheerer.
The first persons to be hired by the Woodwards to assist with the new pottery program were the potters. Unlike the artists who created and carved the designs for the Pottery- the potters were all men, as it was believed that a "male potter would be needed to work the clay, throw the pots, fire the kiln and handle the glazing."

I guess they figured that only men had the strength to throw a pot ?

 

Or something. It wasn't ladylike work, to be sure. The ladies did the decorating.

 

Remember that those men were used to envisioning the students as "fragile flowers of Southern womanhood."

 

Fragile my aunt fanny. But as long as they were volunteering to do the kiln work.... not going to disabuse them.

 

Having known quite a few of that ilk...

 

I mentioned this before,but 30 yrs ago we walked in to small shop in New Orleans that truly had nothing but Newcomb.Little place on Royal Street-saw better antiques there than in Paris.
Of course New Orleans=Tulane University=Newcomb.
PS-My Nephew's a Med student there,how can I bribe him into going to estate sales ?

 

Tell him it's a good way to pay for books. Med school books being like regular textbooks, pricewise. On steroids probably.

 

That's a great idea Evely,I could coach him.God knows what treasure are left in that amazing city.

 

many of the legendary pottery companies were founded with similar backdrop stories - the most interesting (to me) is S.E.G. - Saturday Evening Girls (Paul Revere) - it was founded to keep young ladies (mostly immigrants) from roaming the streets - engaging in sexual endeavors - engaging in prostitution - and getting pregnant - ironically? it was run by 2 women named Edith who were lesbian lovers...

Arequipa pottery was an asylum (sanatorium) that was housing women with tuberculosis

Pewabic was founded at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Rookwood was the first large manufacturing enterprise founded and owned by a woman in the United States

 

Great post RCL- Arequipa Pottery in Fairfax,CA is today Camp Arequipa Girl Scout Camp in Marin County,CA.Young women there are still doing arts & crafts,some of which is pottery.
We used to drive by there everytime we went to the Marin Coast/Pt. Reyes National Seashore.Beautiful part of California,I'd imagine some of the original structures from the TB facility are still there,the landscape looks pretty untouched.