Rookwood
Pottery, Mt. Adams (ca. 1910)
Dear
George,
Last
Friday we joined an OLLI class for a tour of the Rookwood Pottery Company in
Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.
Rookwood is a Cincinnati icon.
We have Rookwood fireplaces on our first and second floor, as do many
local homes. The company was
founded in 1880 by Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, the daughter of a Cincinnati
real estate tycoon. Storer had
been inspired by Japanese and French pottery that she saw at the centennial
Exhibition in Philadelphia, and she was determined to create comparable quality
in an American firm. Her father's
country estate in Walnut Hills was named Rookwood, and she gave that name to
the pottery. Following an initial
location on Eastern Avenue, the second Rookwood Pottery building was built on
top of Mount Adams in 1891-92. The
firm, known for its high quality artwork and extraordinary glazes, became
highly prosperous and employed about 200 workers by the 1920's. Art Pottery, however, suffered greatly
during the Great Depression, and Rookwood filed for bankruptcy in 1941. The company moved to Mississippi in
1959 and closed its doors in 1967.
However, a Michigan dentist and art collector named Dr. Arthur Townley
used his life savings to purchase all remaining Rookwood assets in 1982,
including more than 3,000 original molds and hundreds of glaze recipes. Local investors managed in 2004 to have
the company move back to Cincinnati, and the company is once again in full
production, employing about 70 workers and selling its products through more
than 75 dealers across the U.S. and Canada. Touring the factory was a delight, and, though we weren't
allowed to take photos in the production area, we could in the lobby and
showroom. Here's what some of the
beautiful Rookwood creations look like today.
Love,
Dave
Sources: www.rookwood.com,
"Rookwood Pottery Company"; www.wikipedia.org, "Rookwood
Pottery"
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