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Mid Century African American Tuskegee Institute Pottery Vase. Approx 9.75in H
Related Literature: Alternative American Ceramics,1870-1955, Ken Forster, pp. 191-192.
This is an important example of African American ceramics, and illustrates the "totally new concept in the field of African American higher education." In the 1930s, George Washington Carver, who was the Director of the Tuskegee Institute, recruited Isaac Scott Hathaway to develop a department of ceramics at the school. Hathaway taught at the School of Mechanical Industries and the School of Architecture. As a scientist, Carver was interested in the extraction of pigments from the Alabama red clay, and he and Hathaway worked closely together in the formulation of glazes for ceramic and pottery production. In the late 1940s, Hathaway moved on to the Alabama State College in Montgomery, and the ceramics program was taken over by William Daniel Southall (1952-1957). From 1953-1956, Donell Carter, prior to graduating from the Institute with a degree in engineering technology, was responsible for pottery casting and firing. In the 1950s, better, larger kilns were acquired and interest in the craft increased.
Booker T. Washington opened Tuskegee in 1881, under his belief that "vocational and instructional skills could produce economic gains, which, in turn, would be instrumental in the struggle to achieve political and civil rights." (Forster, p. 191)
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