Bonnie Nelson spoke at the July 21 Front Porch Chat at the Stutsman County Memorial Museum on "North Dakota Pottery." Nelson said there were four major sources of collectible North Dakota pottery. The earliest and most well-known was produced by the University of North Dakota School of Mines under the direction of Margaret Cable.
Many other North Dakota pottery houses were started by students of Cable or instructors that she had hired to work at the UND site. Cable was head instructor of the Ceramics Department at UND for 39 years. Some of the instructors had unique styles that identifies their pieces, including Cable’s sister, Flora Huckfield, who often signed her pieces as simply “Huck”.
Laura Taylor served as the department supervisor in 1931-1933 and went on to start Rosemead Pottery. Julia Mattson was the last of the Cable associates to serve as the UND Ceramics Department supervisor; the longtime logo of the department was discontinued when she retired in 1963. Through the years they produced ceramics of many styles of pots and vases as well as tiles, bricks, figurines, ashtrays, salt and pepper shakers, banks, bookends, tea sets, rounds and small items such as curtain pulls and even pins and necklaces.
Dakota Pottery was started in 1934, in Dickinson, North Dakota. The name changed to Dickota Pottery and had several unique styles including a swirl technique that was invented by Howard Lewis. This pottery was shaped by the North Dakota Badlands and many motifs were representative of the area.
Hats, horseshoes, buffalo and other wildlife were popular as were items representing the Native American communities. During the 1930s the WPA, a federal organization established during the Franklin Roosevelt administration, provided for the establishment of pottery companies in states including North Dakota. The WPA forbade the pottery from being sold, so it was given to schools, hospitals, libraries and other institutions.
It was well done and is still collectable, Nelson said. Rosemead Pottery was started in Wahpeton in 1940 by Laura Taylor and her husband, Robert Hughes, who had their roots in the UND Ceramics Department. Taylor was an instructor and Hughes as a student.
Their pottery is highly collectable and is, in some cases, very valuable, Nelson said. They were prolific and had many lines of related pieces, including figurines, ashtrays (for men and women), spoon rests, wall plaques, jam jars, snack sets, planters, banks, Teddy Roosevelt images and hundreds of other items. Nelson said that they created animal figurines of everything from seals to one of their most popular items, pheasants, of which they had estimated that more than 500,000 had been produced in 19 different styles by 1953.
ADVERTISEMENT Nelson said that over her 35 to 40 years of collecting, it is still exciting to find another piece for her large collection. She said she often finds them at auction sales on eBay and is a member of a collectors’ club in Fargo that is devoted to the hobby. The Front Porch Chat at 2 p.
m. Sunday, July 28, will feature Clara Peterson on “America the Beautiful,” a poem written by Katherine Lee Bates..
