[Rarebooks] FS: Muckraking Socialist on Bennington Pottery

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

A nice inscribed copy-

Spargo, John.  "THE POTTERS AND POTTERIES OF BENNINGTON"  Boston; Houghton
Mifflin Company: 1926. Limited to 800 copies.

If you were a Progressive labor reformer and union organizer, author of an
influential and muckraking study on the scandal of child labor in mines,
but for medical reasons you had to move from New York to Vermont and find
a more genteel activity for a time, what would you do? Well, if you were
John Spargo [1876-1966] you’d start collecting Bennington Pottery and
write a definitive study of the two 19th century Bennington potteries and
their wares!

Born in Cornwall, England, Spargo earned his early living cutting granite
while he took extension course at Oxford and Cambridge. He became a union
organizer, and when he moved to New York in 1901, he became a leader of
the American Socialist Party. He resigned from the Party during the First
World War because of its antiwar policy, and then formed the American
Alliance for Labor and Democracy with Samuel Gompers. A prolific writer,
his most influential book was “The Bitter Cry of the Children”, a 1906
expose of the scandalous use of child labor in coal mining.

After World War I Spargo’s politics continued to evolve, and he later
became an advocate of free-market capitalism. He moved to Vermont for
health reasons in 1909, and he naturally became interested in early
Vermont history and industry. This led him to study of the history and
wares of the Bennington potteries. As he notes in his preface, “many of my
personal friends have been surprised to find me interested in ‘old cracked
teapots and dishes’.” But he was always intrigued by antique china, and
points out that the hobby of china collecting has a long and storied
history, having been practiced by George Washington, Samuel Johnson, and
Horace Walpole.

Further, as an adopted Vermonter who quickly grew to love the state and
its heritage, his “interest in the history of the pottery industry at
Bennington was part and parcel of my interest in the history of the
foundation of the Commonwealth itself”.

Well, there you are. No further explanations needed.

In this, his magnum opus on the Bennington potteries, Spargo discusses the
Norton and Fenton potteries at length, and also includes chapters on
Parian wares, glazes, and other Bennington potters. Spargo's emphasis is
on the fancier wares, although the utilitarian stonewares are also
described. Although he wrote many years ago, Spargo was a careful and
skilled researcher thoroughly involved in his work, and this remains an
important reference, especially as Barret’s later book on Bennington
contains so many pitfalls for the unwary. Spargo would go on to write
several other books on ceramics, including “Early American Pottery and
China”, and “The A.B.C. of Bennington Pottery Wares”, and served as
Director-Curator of the Bennington Historical Museum. He also wrote books
on Vermont’s covered bridges, the Bennington Battle Monument, and Anthony
Haswell, the Revolutionary printer and balladeer. [Strong 449] [Weidner
A236]

Hardcover. 8.5"x11", 270 pages, plus 8 color and 36 b/w plates; somewhat
soiled and worn covers. This copy is inscribed "Like fishing, in
collecting the best pieces are those we just failed to land! John Spargo".
 [08753]  $250.00

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