The Upper Ohio Valley’s Industrial Heritage: The East Liverpool Museum of Ceramics

Abstract

THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY’S INDUSTRIAL HERITAGE: THE EAST LIVERPOOL MUSEUM OF CERAMICS REGINA LEE BLASZCZYK From its headwaters in western Pennsylvania, the Ohio River snakes through a valley whose sublime beauty dazzled 18th-century fron­ tiersmen and whose abundance of natural resources inspired ambi­ tious 19th-century entrepreneurs. Today, the drive along the upper Ohio Valley is striking from another perspective: the landscape from Pittsburgh to Wheeling testifies to the desolation of deindustrializa­ tion. Once-bustling towns that drew their lifeblood from ready river transportation and from the region’s deposits of coal, iron, natural gas, and clay now stand in ghostly silence. From Midland to Bellaire, empty plants remind passersby of the formerly prosperous steel and glass industries. In East Liverpool, a small city 40 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, a lone early-20th-century bottle-shaped kiln attests to the city’s former standing as the ceramics manufacturing center of the United States (see fig. I). This kiln, a tiny monument to the city’s industrial past, once sat among dozens of nearly identical brick ovens that vented coal-black smoke into skies over East Liverpool. Now listed on the National Register of Historic Sites, the kiln is the property of the Ohio Historical Society (OHS), which opened the nearby East Liverpool Museum of Ceramics (ELMC) in 1980. Among OHS’s fifty or more holdings in 1992, ELMC was one of a handful to focus on the industrial history of the Buckeye State. Located in a restored post office building built in 1909, ELMC has two floors of exhibits open to the public five days a week, March through November, for the modest adult admission price of $3.00. The museum houses a reference collection, available to scholars by appointment, that consists of artifacts and manuscripts related to local institutions, individuals, and the pottery industry. Ms. Blaszczyk is a Ph.D. candidate and Hagley Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Delaware and was previously a museum specialist in the Depart­ ment of Social and Cultural History at the National Museum of American History. She is writing a dissertation on the U.S. ceramics and glass industries in the late 19th and 20th centuries.© 1992 by the Society for the History of Technology. All rights reserved. 0040-165X/92/3304-0007$01.00 788 The East Liverpool Museum of Ceramics 789 Fig. 1.—This pottery oven once stood among dozens in America’s “Crockery City.” Today, it is the only surviving bottle kiln in East Liverpool. (Photos by the author.) Now administered by OHS, the museum of ceramics was estab­ lished through thejoint efforts of local citizens and the state historical society. It was the brainchild of William H. Vodrey, a prominent East Liverpool attorney whose ancestors established one of the city’s pottery dynasties during the 19th century. Vodrey generously matched a $100,000 implementation grant from the National Endow­ ment for the Humanities, and OHS provided additional support to complete the $500,000 installation. By working with Vodrey and other local citizens to establish ELMC, administrators and curators at the Ohio Historical Society hoped to accomplish several goals. William C. Gates,Jr., former site director and curator in charge of the 1980 installation, recounted OHS’s objectives: curators hoped to exhibit the city’s social and industrial history, to collect and preserve artifacts and manuscripts relating to the local ceramics industry, to encourage community interest in urban studies, and to stimulate scholarly study of East Liverpool’s industrial past. Over the last decade, ELMC has succeeded in many of its goals. In publications, public programs, and support for scholars, this little museum’s efforts are exemplary. On the other hand, ELMC’s galleries, innovative for the late 1970s, should be updated to reflect recent historical research in social, business, urban, and technological history.1 ‘Telephone interview with William C. Gates, Jr., February 11, 1992. 790 Regina Lee Blaszczyk Although many small historical institutions cannot integrate origi­ nal scholarship into their exhibitions and programs because of time, budget, and staff restrictions, much of what went into ELMC’s exhibit script was based on primary research. A paucity of published mate­ rials about the industrialization...