In A Potter's Progress: Emanuel Suter and the Business of Craft, Scott Hamilton Suter explores the life and work of upper Shenandoah Valley potter Emanuel Suter—the author's great-great-grandfather. The result is a deeply researched and telling example of how we can tell far-reaching stories by focusing on a person and a region. Too often today, scholars look down upon regional cultural histories, but Scott Suter argues successfully that delving into a Mennonite craftsman who lived from 1833 to 1902 not only illuminates issues of US culture and the Progressive era broadly, but also is a useful addition to folklore and ceramics scholarship. The author provides a more academically rigorous companion to his previous work Shenandoah Valley Folklife (1999) and other recent ceramics catalogs and pamphlets, adding historical context and a deep reading of primary sources that historians, museum professionals, folklorists, and material culture scholars will appreciate.
Because the first...
