Food

Part of a nation's history lies in what people eat. Artifacts at the Museum document the history of food in the United States from farm machinery to diet fads.

More than 1,300 pieces of stoneware and earthenware show how Americans have stored, prepared, and served food for centuries. Ovens, cookie cutters, kettles, aprons, and ice-cream-making machines are part of the collections, along with home canning jars and winemaking equipment. More than 1,000 objects recently came to the Museum when author and cooking show host Julia Child donated her entire kitchen, from appliances to cookbooks.

Advertising and business records of several food companies—such as Hills Brothers Coffee, Pepsi Cola, and Campbell's Soup—represent the commercial side of the subject

The Remmey and Crolius families dominated the New York stoneware industry from the early 1700s through the early 1800s. Both families emigrated from Germany, bringing with them the stoneware traditions of their homeland.
Description
The Remmey and Crolius families dominated the New York stoneware industry from the early 1700s through the early 1800s. Both families emigrated from Germany, bringing with them the stoneware traditions of their homeland. Sometimes business associates, the two families also inter-married. Remmey family members went on to establish stoneware factories in Philadelphia and Baltimore, as well.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1795-1830
maker
Remmey III, John
ID Number
1980.0614.363
accession number
1980.0614
catalog number
1980.0614.363
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.292199.8
accession number
292199
catalog number
292199.8
While this jar is unmarked, it may be one of several in the Museum's collection made by Thomas Commeraw, a free black potter.
Description
While this jar is unmarked, it may be one of several in the Museum's collection made by Thomas Commeraw, a free black potter. Thomas Commeraw established his pottery in the Corlears Hook neighborhood of lower Manhattan in 1797, successfully competing with well known stoneware makers from the Crolious and Remmey families.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1797-1819
maker
Commeraw, Thomas
ID Number
1977.0803.115
accession number
1977.0803
catalog number
1977.0803.115
This stoneware butter crock was made by John Burger, who operated a pottery in Rochester, New York, between 1839 and 1870. It is one gallon in capacity with a maker’s mark just below the rim.
Description
This stoneware butter crock was made by John Burger, who operated a pottery in Rochester, New York, between 1839 and 1870. It is one gallon in capacity with a maker’s mark just below the rim. Its floral design is rendered in cobalt blue, and the interior is brown glazed.
John Burger came from Alsace-Lorraine in France, and first worked at a pottery in Lyons on the Erie Canal. In 1839 he moved to Rochester and joined Nathan Clark and Company as manager of the pottery. In 1855 Burger became the owner of the pottery and continued in the business of making stoneware for domestic uses—preserve jars, churns, pitchers and batter pitchers, cream pots, jugs, molasses jugs, water fountains, beer bottles, stove tubes, and the butter pot seen here. He was joined in the business by his sons in the 1860s. Decorative floral motifs of this kind were common by the 1850s.
Early in the 19th century, the potters themselves executed the designs, but later they employed women to paint the pottery’s motifs onto the vessels. Women’s skills in writing and in decorative techniques expressed in the home prepared them to execute designs with fluency and without any formal art education.
date made
1854-1867
maker
Burger, John
ID Number
CE.319884.161
catalog number
319884.161
accession number
319884
Cylindrical, clear, colorless pressed glass jar with plain rim, vertical S waves on its exterior, and a radiating star on bottom underside. Smooth interior has "PAT'D" in raised sans serif letters at bottom. Jar from pickle caster, 1979.0800.01-.04.Currently not on view
Description
Cylindrical, clear, colorless pressed glass jar with plain rim, vertical S waves on its exterior, and a radiating star on bottom underside. Smooth interior has "PAT'D" in raised sans serif letters at bottom. Jar from pickle caster, 1979.0800.01-.04.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1880s
ca 1880
ID Number
1979.0800.01
catalog number
1979.0800.01
accession number
1979.0800
John William Crolius immigrated to Manhattan from Germany in 1728 and established a successful pottery dynasty. This piece was probably made by Clarkson Crolius Jr., John William’s grandson. The last potter to work in the family business, Clarkson closed the pottery in 1849.
Description
John William Crolius immigrated to Manhattan from Germany in 1728 and established a successful pottery dynasty. This piece was probably made by Clarkson Crolius Jr., John William’s grandson. The last potter to work in the family business, Clarkson closed the pottery in 1849. This jar is glazed with Albany slip clay which was discovered in the Hudson Valley region about 1830 and soon became a preferred glaze for stoneware vessels.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1835-1849
maker
Crolius, Jr., Clarkson
ID Number
1977.0855.1
accession number
1977.0855
catalog number
1977.0855.01
This salt-glazed stoneware butter jar is decorated with hand applied cobalt, and is one of the earliest pieces made at the Athens, New York pottery established in 1805 by Nathan Clark and his brother-in-law, Thomas Howe.
Description
This salt-glazed stoneware butter jar is decorated with hand applied cobalt, and is one of the earliest pieces made at the Athens, New York pottery established in 1805 by Nathan Clark and his brother-in-law, Thomas Howe. Howe died in 1813 leaving Clark to run and expand the company. He established subsidiaries in Kingston, Lyons, Rochester and Mt. Morris, New York between 1813 and 1838. The firm prospered until the end of the 1800s.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1805-1813
maker
Clark, Nathan
Howe, Thomas
ID Number
1977.0803.53
accession number
1977.0803
catalog number
1977.0803.053
Floral, bird, and animal motifs were commonly used to decorate 19th century stoneware in the United States.
Description
Floral, bird, and animal motifs were commonly used to decorate 19th century stoneware in the United States. This jar, made by John Remmey III, features an incised and cobalt decorated fish.
Remmey pottery is often marked “Manhattan-Wells” referring to the firm’s location near the municipal water supply.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1791-ca 1831
maker
Remmey III, John
ID Number
CE.300894.007
accession number
300894
catalog number
300894.7
300894.007
David Morgan worked for New York City potter John Crolius Jr., beginning in 1795. In 1798 he temporarily took over Thomas H. Commeraw’s kiln on Cherry Street near Corlear’s Hook in Manhattan.
Description
David Morgan worked for New York City potter John Crolius Jr., beginning in 1795. In 1798 he temporarily took over Thomas H. Commeraw’s kiln on Cherry Street near Corlear’s Hook in Manhattan. The mark “CORLEARS HOOK” can be found on many of the well-formed jars, jugs and pitchers attributed to Morgan.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1795-1803
maker
Morgan, David
ID Number
1977.0803.108
accession number
1977.0803
catalog number
1977.0803.108
This salt-glazed jar was made by D. Roberts & Co. at the Fayette Stoneware Factory in Utica, New York, about 1827-1828. This firm was the third to open in Utica, an important commercial center on the Erie Canal.
Description
This salt-glazed jar was made by D. Roberts & Co. at the Fayette Stoneware Factory in Utica, New York, about 1827-1828. This firm was the third to open in Utica, an important commercial center on the Erie Canal. In a busy agricultural region, Utica was a major marketing town and the most significant center for pottery production in the upper Mohawk Valley. The Fayette Stoneware Factory produced some of the best early stoneware in Utica.
The presence of nearby stoneware clays gave rise to the New York state salt-glazed stoneware tradition that, by the early 1800s, developed in villages and towns along the Hudson River. Shipped upriver, the clay returned downstream after being transformed into useful ceramic vessels. With the Erie Canal completion in 1825, stoneware production extended its range to meet the increased flow of perishable goods from the Great Lakes region.
Stoneware clay, when fired to a temperature of about 2100 degrees F, vitrifies into highly durable ceramic material that holds liquids and keeps perishable contents cool. Stoneware potters in America, many of them immigrants from Germany and the Netherlands, maintained their European tradition of throwing coarse salt into the kiln. The salt melts in the heat and forms a pitted glassy surface on the vessels, which would otherwise be a dull grey.
The production of these sturdy salt-glazed containers declined following improvements in tinning and canning perishable foodstuffs. In the late 1850s, the glass Mason canning jar entered the market, after which the potteries lost much of the demand for food storage containers that sustained so much of their production.
date made
1827-28
ID Number
1977.0803.89
accession number
1977.0803
catalog number
1977.0803.89
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.292199.6ab
accession number
292199
catalog number
292199.6ab
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1875 - 1899
ID Number
CL.64.0533
catalog number
64.0533
accession number
251849

Our collection database is a work in progress. We may update this record based on further research and review. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online.

If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions.