New York State History Month: New York City Scenes on Transferware

Did you know that November is New York State History Month? To mark this occasion, Alice News will be highlighting pieces of transferware from the Alice’s collection that feature New York’s history and scenery. We’ll start in New York City, then move into the Hudson Valley and the Catskill Mountains, and end our journey out west in Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

Patriotic Americans in the years after the War of 1812 could choose from a wide variety of ceramics that depicted national heroes, military victories, public buildings, scenery, and important happenings, such as the opening of the Erie Canal. Most of these pieces were made in England, in the Staffordshire District. The potteries used the transfer process to create these American commemoratives. The design would be engraved on a copper plate, much like those used for making paper engravings. The plate was used to print the pattern on tissue paper, then the tissue paper transferred the wet ink to the ceramic surface. The ceramic was then fired in a low temperature kiln to fix the pattern. This method was a much less costly alternative to hand-painting, making these ceramics accessible to a wide range of Americans.

J. and W. Ridgway, New York City Hall

Our first piece is a dinner plate that shows New York’s City Hall. This plate is part of a series illustrating the “Beauties of America,” made by the English pottery company of John and William Ridgway. John Ridgway came to the United States in 1822, and traveled throughout the eastern states in search of suitable views of major American cities, as well as to establish business relationships with American ceramic merchants. Ridgway selected 22 buildings, including almshouses, hospitals, churches, and banks, to feature on a wide range of tableware—tureens, platters, gravy boats, tea sets, dinner plates, soup bowls, even a baby’s bathtub!



Ridgway chose just two New York places for the Beauties of America: the Almshouse (later Bellevue Hospital) and City Hall. The building depicted here was actually New York’s third City Hall. The first one was built by the Dutch in the 17th century on Pearl Street, the second in 1700 on Wall and Nassau Streets. That building was renamed Federal Hall when New York became the capital of the United States in 1789. The City Council chose the site for a new City Hall on the old Common at the northern limits of the city, and held a competition to design a new building in 1802. The prize was awarded to Joseph-François Mangin and John McComb, Jr. Disagreements over the design and costs, labor disputes, and a yellow fever outbreak delayed construction, but the building finally opened officially in 1812. 

City Hall in 1919

City Hall was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. Parks Service historian Charles E. Shedd, Jr., in his report for the National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, summed up its importance:

“Since its completion in 1811, New York City Hall has been the heartbeat of the bustling seaport which became the capital of the Free World. The Hall has watched American armies passing in review, going to battle or coming home from the Nation’s wars, from 1812 to Korea. For more than a century and a half it has greeted the great of this and other nations; Lafayette and Lindbergh, Garibaldi and Eisenhower; and it has welcomed to these shores the humble and unknown. Before it have passed generations of immigrants, trudging toward their new homes in the teeming city or in the cities, farms, and plains which stretched westward to the Pacific. The Hall tells the colorful and significant story of civic administration in an American metropolis and preserves the deeds of good men and bad who shaped the American political tradition: DeWitt Clinton, father of the Erie Canal; ‘Boss’ Tweed, the evil genius of machine politics, and the able and flamboyant ‘Little Flower,’ Fiorello La Guardia, among scores of others no less memorable.”

James and Ralph Clews, Landing of Gen. Lafayette

Shedd’s mention of Lafayette brings us to our second item: Pieces depicting General Lafayette’s arrival at Castle Garden on August 16, 1824, made by James and Ralph Clews. I’ve chosen a platter as illustration so you can get a good look at the image; the Alice’s collection includes a pitcher, large washbasin, and a plate. It’s hard to express just how important Lafayette’s visit was, and how absolutely wild Americans were about him. Lafayette was the last surviving general of the Revolutionary War—he had first come to the colonies as a 19-year-old, and now, almost 40 years later, he was back. 1824 was also a presidential election year, and the first one in which none of the members of the old Revolutionary generation was a candidate. During this time of change, Americans joyfully looked back to the heroes of the Revolutionary era.

Lafayette as a young lieutenant general, 1791

Lafayette traveled to the U.S. on the American merchant vessel Cadmus, along with his son, George Washington Lafayette, and secretary, Auguste Levasseur. When the ship arrived in New York Harbor, it was met by two steamboats, the Chancellor Livingston and the Robert Fulton, and escorted with great fanfare to Castle Garden.

Castle Garden had originally been built as a fort, known as the West Battery, on the southern tip of Manhattan. Troops were stationed there during the War of 1812, though it saw no action. It was renamed Castle Clinton in 1815, in honor of New York State’s first governor, George Clinton. However, the army abandoned it in 1821, and by the time of Lafayette’s visit, it had become a place of public amusement, offering concerts, a beer garden, and other entertainments.

Castle Garden was the site of one of the massive public receptions held for General Lafayette during his American tour. The author of the book Memoirs of General Lafayette, published in 1824, described the occasion:

“The most splendid scene exhibited in this proud city, was the fete at Castle-garden. This was an evening party and ball, at which six thousand ladies and gentlemen were present. It was the most brilliant and magnificent scene ever witnessed in the United States. Castle-garden lies at a very short distance from Battery-street, which is a spacious and elegant promenade, on the south westerly part of the city. It was formerly a fort and is about one hundred and seventy feet in diameter, of a circular or elliptical form. It has lately become a place of great resort in the warm season of the year. Every thing which labor and expence, art and taste could effect was done to render it convenient, showy and elegant. An awning covered the whole area of the garden, suspended at an altitude of seventy-five feet; the columns which supported the dome were highly ornamented, and lighted by an immense cut glass chandelier, with thirteen smaller ones appended.

Perhaps some of the ladies at the fete wore
commemorative gloves like this pair in the Alice’s collection.

“The General, made his appearance about 10 o’clock, when the dance and the song was at an end. The military band struck up a grand march, and the Guest was conducted through a column of ladies and gentlemen to a splendid pavilion. Not a word was spoken of gratulation—so profound, and respectful, and intellectual was the interest which his presence excited....In front of the pavilion was a triumphal arch, of about 90 feet span, adorned with laurel, oak, and festoons, based upon pillars of cannon fifteen feet high.—A bust of Washington, supported by a golden eagle, was placed over the arch as the presiding deity. Within the arch was a symbolic painting nearly 25 feet square, exhibiting a scroll inscribed to Fayette, with the words:—‘Honored be the faithful Patriot.’

“Soon after the General entered, the painting just alluded to was slowly raised, which exhibited to the audience a beautiful transparency, representing La Grange, the mansion of La Fayette. The effect was as complete as the view was unexpected and imposing. Another subdued clap of admiration followed this tasteful and appropriate and highly interesting display.”

Castle Garden in its Aquarium days, early 1900s

Though this was undoubtedly a highlight of its existence, Castle Garden went on to have a long and varied life. In 1855, it became the Emigrant Landing Depot, New York State’s first immigrant processing facility, and served this purpose until Ellis Island opened in 1890. Over 8 million immigrants (and maybe as many as 12 million) passed through Castle Garden. Between 1896 and 1941, it was the site of the New York City Aquarium. It was designated a national monument in 1946, and is once again known as Castle Clinton.

If you are interested in learning more about American historical Staffordshire, Patriotic America, a site created by the Transferware Collectors Club, Winterthur Museum, and Historic New England, is a great place to start!

Alice Morse Earle and the Domestic History of Early America

In the early 20th century, when collectors of antiques, curators of museum exhibits, and directors of pageants needed information about colonial American life, they frequently turned to the works of Alice Morse Earle (1851-1911). Earle began her writing career in 1891 with the publication of The Sabbath in Puritan New England, and over the next twelve years she would produce sixteen more books on the life, manners, customs, and material culture of colonial America, including Colonial Dames and Goodwives (1895), Home Life in Colonial Days (1898), Old Time Gardens (1901), and Two Centuries of Costume in America, 1620-1820 (1903).

Alice's copy of China Collecting in America

 In our library here at the Alice, we have a copy of Earle’s China Collecting in America, originally published in 1892. Alice Miner’s copy is the 1924 edition, acquired just as she was opening her own collection of china to the public. It seems quite likely that she also consulted Earle’s other books as she was making purchases and deciding how to arrange the rooms of the museum. Historian Susan Reynolds Williams’s new book, Alice Morse Earle and the Domestic History of Early America, provides us with some very interesting insights into what was surely a significant influence on Alice Miner’s ideas about the colonial era.

Earle’s books were carefully researched and thoroughly documented, but because she wrote for a popular audience, she was dismissed by some academic historians as a writer of mere “pots-and-pans history.” It was not until the 1980s, with the development of women’s history and material culture studies, that Earle came to be appreciated as a pioneer in both of these areas. However, very little has been written about her, in part because she left behind no personal papers and hardly any other biographical material. Williams thus had to piece together Earle’s life and career from a variety of other sources—genealogical research, scattered correspondence in various archives, conversations with descendants, and Earle’s own published works.

Alice Morse in 1873, just before
her marriage to Henry Earle

Alice Morse was born in 1851 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the daughter of Edwin and Abigail Clary Morse. Alice had a comfortable, middle-class childhood which included an excellent education and time at a fashionable finishing school in Boston. In 1874, she married Henry Earle, a stockbroker, and moved to Brooklyn Heights, where she would live for the rest of her life. Alice devoted herself to the traditional concerns of middle-class women—home, husband, children (the Earles had four), as well as the many social, literary, and historical organizations that flourished in late-19th century Brooklyn. She began publishing her historical writing in 1890, and very quickly became both a popular author and a respected authority on the colonial era.

Earle frequently photographed her children in gardens and
historically-inspired settings 

Earle saw herself as a representative of white, middle-class American culture, and specifically that of families with roots in rural New England of the 17th and 18th centuries. In a time of rapid urbanization, technological change, and large-scale immigration, Earle looked to the past as a source of timeless values. While she rejected the harsh Calvinist doctrines of Puritan religion, she felt that Puritan attitudes toward home, family, duty, and industry were worthy of emulation. Earle hoped that by introducing her readers to the material world of colonial America, they could recreate something like the environment in which those values had originally flourished.

Earle preferred to use photographs to illustrate her books whenever possible,
believing they were more accurate than drawings. This one is from Stagecoach and Tavern Days, 1900.

As Williams notes, Earle felt some ambivalence about her role as both wife and mother and professional writer. She took her mothering duties very seriously but also felt constrained by middle-class gender norms at times; she felt that women had a duty to improve themselves and their communities but never publicly aligned herself with any of the groups advocating for radical social change (we don’t even know if she supported women’s suffrage). Similarly, while her books celebrated women’s traditional domestic role in the colonial era, they also made it quite clear that women’s work was absolutely central to the social and economic fabric of pre-industrial America.

Earle hoped that this book cover, designed using the
blue-and-buff color scheme of the Colonial Dames of
America, would appeal to members of that organization.

Earle's writing blended conservative and progressive ideology, suggesting that it was possible to embrace the benefits of progress while striving to improve the present by looking to the past. Like many of her contemporaries in the Progressive movement, she believed firmly in the ability of furnishings, houses, and gardens to influence behavior. Earle did not question the power of white, middle-class, native-born Americans to set cultural standards, and she assumed that her primary audience would be people like herself. But she also believed that these standards could be met by anyone willing embrace them, regardless of class or ethnic background. Not everyone had an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War, but anyone could own (or at least appreciate) a Staffordshire plate, a Queen Anne chest, or a pewter porringer.

All of Alice Morse Earle's books are in the public domain, and can be found in digital libraries such as Google Books and the Internet Archive.

The Marquis is at The Alice

When Alice Miner planned her Chazy museum, the initial architectural sketches revealed an environment resembling a gallery with skylights and a very open floor plan. The design she finally chose, however, was akin to the layout of a wealthy Colonial home. That decision was likely significantly influenced by the nationalistic ideas flourishing in the early 20th century. Her collecting was also a product of her era. She acquired many of the hallmark items of what is now referred to as the Colonial Revival Movement; objects and documents associated with our founding fathers and notable citizens, American-made decorative arts, engraved representations of the American Revolution and its keys players, needlework, textiles, memorabilia and more.

There were a few individuals who were particular favorites of Alice and her husband William, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant. Along with fascinating letters and other assorted pieces associated with those luminaries, Alice gathered a collection of objects associated with Gilbert du Motier, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette. Our second floor hallway holds portraits, miniature portraits, a bust, transfer-printed pottery, and even a pair of French polychrome bisque figures representing Lafayette and his wife Adrienne.

Lafayette Memorial Ribbon, 19th Century

It seems obvious that Lafayette was a hero to Alice and William, and books about his life are abundant in their personal collection. In all there are over 30 objects or documents in this Lafayette collection, not including books. They range from a lovely pair of ladies kid-skin gloves transfer-decorated with an image of Lafayette and the words "Welcome Lafayette", to a fragment of hand embroidered French fabric from a dress worn by a Mrs. Prescott of Boston at a ball given for the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824. In The Alice archives we have a letter that General Lafayette wrote in his later years from La Grange, his mother-in-law's estate. He wrote to a Citizen Armand, or perhaps Arnaud, in Paris, attempting to gain restitution for some property or paintings lost from his father-in-law's estate. The letter is undated but was probably written in the early 1800s.

Clews Pitcher, Landing of General Lafayette, Blue Transfer Print, Circa 1825 (front)

Framed Tinted Lithograph, Published by Villian, Early 19th Century (back)

One of my favorite Lafayette objects in the collection is small, in very worn condition, and easy to overlook. Like the letter written by him, Lafayette may even have held this object in his hands at one time. It is a very well-used silver watchcase delicately engraved on the inside and back. The object is also interesting for it's association with another hero of the American Revolution and later Secretary of War, General Henry Knox. The engraving says, "Presented to General Knox by DeLafayette 177..." with the last number obscured. There is also engraving on the inside front that is partially obscured. All that can be read is "DeLaFa... A Paris", engraved below a diamond and some numbers that may be a maker's mark.

On the second floor of The Alice, one can also find five miniature portraits of Lafayette at various stages of his life. Some show him as a young man with a powdered wig, and two are more life-like images with dark hair. One of the two is a very small and delicate engraving depicting the Marquis in his later years - as he probably looked when he visited the United States in 1824, at the age of 67.

When he returned from France in 1824 to visit the land he felt great love for, the Marquis de Lafayette strongly stirred American sentiment, finding his way into the hearts of the citizens of a fledgling United States. Many of the objects in The Alice collection would never have been created if it weren't for the sentimental journey Lafayette made through the young states. We have some beautiful blue and white transferware commemorating his visit, including a large Clews pitcher showing the "Landing of General Lafayette at Castle Garden, New York, 16 August, 1824". The handle is decorated with the fleur-de-lis, in honor of Lafayette. Another pattern is a blue transferware image of Lafayette standing before the tomb of Washington, and yet a third shows him at the tomb of Franklin, a true hero of many French citizens.

Miniature Engraved Portrait of Lafayette, 19th Century

The majority of these Lafayette pieces are on display in the second floor hall of the museum, where the letter written by the Marquis is also occasionally exhibited. In order to view this wonderful collection within a collection you will need to wait until our museum tours start again. We will be closed for tours for the months of January, February and March, with tours in April by appointment only. Keep an eye out for upcoming event announcements though, including an astronomy lecture this January 19th at 7:00pm.

Happy New Year!

Emma and the Wedgwood Collection

In 1917 Alice and William were visited at their Heart's Delight Farm in Chazy by a dear friend from Chicago, Emma Blanxius Hodge. Emma had come that long way not just to relax, visit with her friends, and enjoy the fresh country air. She had also planned to catalog Alice's burgeoning collection of china. It was appropriate that Mrs. Hodge should offer her extensive knowledge of decorative arts to her friend in this way since she was responsible for getting Mrs. Miner started with the collection in the first place.

If one were to mention they collect Wedgwood, their statement might merely conjure some vague notion that they were interested in pottery. What the majority of us likely would not realize is the breadth of pottery designs such a collection might include. This is what I hope to illustrate with the newest exhibit at The Alice. My intent was to display some of the Wedgwood pottery Alice collected in the early 1900s, and in the process found a wide variety of the types of objects Wedgwood Manufactory sold starting in 1758.

Of the thirteen pieces I have chosen for our Wedgwood exhibit, ten are described in the 1917 inventory Hodge penned. Emma wrote descriptions, and labeled and numbered more than 350 objects for Alice that summer. Along the way she included information about each pottery type, and its style and manufacturer. The catalog consists of 116 typewritten pages of very detailed information about a collection now housed in the Ballroom of The Alice T. Miner Museum.

Emma wrote, "This compiled catalog is dedicated to my dear friends of Heart's Delight Farm, who, while they were laboring with the knitting needle for our soldiers at the front, permitted me to assemble these facts concerning the collection of pottery and porcelain in the Matilda Trainer collection, and furnished for me a summer of fragrant and unforgettable associations.

Emma B. Hodge.

Heart's Delight Farm,

Chazy, New York.

August, 28, 1917"

Alice Miner named her collection of British and American porcelain and earthenware in memory of her recently departed oldest sister Matilda, who passed away on February 14, 1917 - just weeks before her 65th birthday. Emma's visit probably helped to ease the acute loss Alice must have felt that summer. Twelve years older than Alice, Matilda was much more than a sister - she had stepped in to help raise the younger children after their mother died in 1870, followed too soon by their father in 1876.

The objects currently exhibited in the Dining Room of The Alice range widely in style, glaze and intended use, as well as in taste! Included is a handsome black basalt bust portrait of George Washington, circa 1790. It is the largest and most striking Wedgwood object in the collection. When you come for a tour you will also see an ironstone china teapot made by Wedgwood that once belonged to William Miner's grandmother Lydia that was given to Alice for her collection by his aunt Huldah Miner in 1917. One of the more whimsical objects is a small teapot shaped like a cauliflower, realistic enough that it made a docent who is allergic to cauliflower sneeze while helping to install the exhibit!

Another Chicago collector represented in this Wedgwood exhibit, Frank Wakely Gunsaulus, was a mutual friend of the Miners and Emma B. Hodge. Gunsaulus was a major collector of illuminated manuscripts, ancient texts, decorative arts, as well as Wedgwood, and his influence on Alice's collection can be seen in numerous extraordinary objects in The Alice's collection. Many of the objects he had gathered, including an Old Wedgwood collection, were donated to The Art Institute of Chicago. The Alice and The Art Institute each own one of a pair of matching flower vases once owned by Mr. Gunsaulus. He had originally donated both to The Art Institute, yet then removed one from their collection to give to Alice. They are Wedgwood jasperware vases described by Mrs. Hodge as; "Flower Holder. Light blue jasper with white figures in low relief of children playing blind man's buff. Classic borders and octagonal base with geometric border in white low relief. Circa 1785. From the Frank W. Gunsaulus Collection of 'Old Wedgwood' in The Art Institute of Chicago."

The Wedgwood jasperware flower holder at The Art Institute of Chicago,

photo used with permission.

The jasperware flower vase in The Alice collection.

There is truly something for everyone in this Wedgwood exhibit: from teapots to sculptures, plates to flower vases - with a variety of glazes - from wonderful green glaze, to black basalt, or merely "plain" white glaze. There are Queen's ware, jasperware, Flo Blue, daisies, cucumber leaves, cauliflower and crocus... I can see Emma Hodge, Frank Gunsaulus and Alice Miner gathered around the dining table admiring these beautifully made and lovingly collected objects. Come to The Alice, squint your eyes a bit, and find out if you can see those folks too... Or just come to enjoy the collection!