I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up: Rockingham Ware

For the women out there… Think about this: when was the last time you pulled out a household object such as a tea pot, water pitcher, baking dish, pie plate, or even a soap dish, and had to look at a pictorial image which reminded you to strive to be an “ideal” woman.

Today we have magazines pages to thumb through and commercial advertisements to watch on tv. Many of us pooh-pooh them as the messages are so trivial. We can close a magazine and turn off the tv. How many of us truly aspire to the media’s fabricated ‘idealized’ woman. Sure we buy the face creams, go to yoga to minimize the fatty texture on our bottoms, color the gray, and put on our spanx before a night out, but trying to look better doesn’t truly make us better women. We know this.

During Victorian America, women were bombarded with images of the ‘ideal’ woman. Problem was these images targeted core beliefs. Not superficial ones like today. They sent messages to women reminding them what a good woman was.

Pie Plate: Skinner, February 23, 2003

Rockingham pottery did just that. It was an inexpensive nineteenth-century ceramic widely used in America – an ordinary good. It performed a variety of tasks and played a variety of different roles in everyday life. But what is interesting is that much of Rockingham ware is pictorially embossed with an array of Victorian themes. The themes spoke of urbanization, nostalgia for country life and visually communicated hard messages. They depicted stories of men’s role in the world of hunting and woman’s role at home. How many men out there would like to have in their possession reinforcing pictorial images on every day wares such as a beer pitcher or a shaving mug of graphic hunting scenes?

10-paneled bulbous "manly" probably beer pitcher depicting a boar and stag hunt with hound handle. Awful to see those pronounced ribs -- feed the dog. Cowan’s, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 18, 2008.


Another pitcher of the same subject showing the other side. This one is attributed to E. & W. Bennett, Baltimore, Maryland, circa 1850. Cowan’s, June 21, 2008.

And how pleasant, hanging game... Garth’s Auctions, May 4, 2007
(Bummed the photo has been truncated.)

The embossed patterns on them maintained a cultural identity and the enactment of social roles. Although the ceramic was used at all social-class levels and in all types of communities from urban to rural, the images reinforced heavy expectations. Victorians were deeply concerned and conflicted about gender roles. And they were intensely materialistic people. For women, the theme of Rebekah at the Well was common. It reminded women to behave, serve and obey.

Garth's Auctions, Delaware, Ohio January 6, 2005.


D Marie's South Portland, Maine

Culture is a complex package of beliefs and behaviors. They are expressed through goods. Some of it we shape through our own preferences, and others forced upon us telling us what we need to choose and how we need to be.

These messages were seen over and over again every single day as the wares were used again and again. E. & W. Bennett pottery of Baltimore, Maryland is said to have first introduced Rebekah at the Well in the mid-nineteenth century and nearly all the potteries copied the pattern. In fact, by 1897 it was advertised in four sizes in the Sears Roebuck catalogue becoming the best and longest selling pattern in Rockingham history. The Rebekah at the Well theme embodied the Cult of True Womanhood which flourished during the mid-nineteenth century. (more of that in a post to come… as well as more Rockingham ware... for the darker, less mottled tortoise shell like glaze... Scatter ware, a colleague of mine likes to call it.)

Top image: Augustus Egg, Past and Present (1858)