The Museum of Ceramics
Honoring our Past
Preserving our Legacy

Over Forty Years of promoting
“Pottery Pride”

Forty Years - Forty Faces is a series of vignettes about pottery people. The series is part of the 40th anniversary celebration of the opening of the Museum of Ceramics.

The Museum of Ceramics, founded in 1980, preserves the rich pottery history of the East Liverpool area. In 1840, James Bennett established the small town’s first commercial pottery. By the turn of the century, the pottery industry had grown to the extent that it was producing 50% of America’s ceramics. Over 200 pottery factories have operated in and around East Liverpool.

The museum uses Rockingham and yellowware to tell the story of the fledgling pottery industry. The switch to whiteware in the 1870s created an industry boom and early beginnings are seen in William Bloor’s whiteware and Parian Ware creations. At the height of the industry’s production, Knowles Taylor and Knowles created the pottery pièce de résistance with Lotus Ware. Visitors may see over 200 pieces of this intricately designed, bone china.

The lower level of the museum switches to the topic of production. Full-size dioramas feature a jigger shop (where flatware is formed), the interior of a bottle kiln (where pottery is fired in protective saggers), and a decorating shop that depicts what pottery life was like in 1900.