Americana Insights

Happy Mother’s Day from Americana Insights!

Mildred Weekes Davis Keyser (1892–1950) was an influential revivalist earthenware potter and businesswoman based in Plymouth Meeting, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Remembered as “the greatest single moving force in the revival of the crafts of the Pennsylvania German people,” Keyser produced redware using traditional techniques from 1938 to 1949, bringing new life to a vernacular art that had largely faded by the twentieth century, Mildred also taught her daughter, June Keyser Adams (1920–2015), who began working with Mildred in 1942 and continued operating their studio, Brookcroft Pottery, until 1976. When June and her husband relocated to Florida in 1976, they sold the family’s seventeen-acre Whitemarsh Township property—bringing an end to a remarkable chapter in the revival of Pennsylvania German folk art.

Both Mildred and June made pottery inspired by traditional motifs found on Pennsylvania German pottery throughout the 18th- and-19th-centuries like birds, tulips, dogwood flowers, and other remarkable designs. Each mother made a plate for their daughter’s wedding, Mildred for June, and June for Holly.

⛓️‍💥 Need a last minute Mother’s Day gift? Americana Insights 2025 is available to purchase on our website:

https://americanainsights.org/book-release-2025/

Images 📸: Mildred Keyser, c. 1940. Brookcroft Pottery archives, Gift of Holly Adams Cairns, Historic Trappe; and Wedding plate for Holly Adams and Roger
Cairns, June Keyser Adams (1920–2015), Plymouth
Meeting, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 1988.
Lead-glazed earthenware, Historic Trappe, Promised Gift of Holly Adams Cairns (Photo: Michael E. Myers)

Happy International Sculpture Day!

This sculpture of Adam and Eve was carved by Wilhelm Schimmel (1817–1890), a woodcarver from the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania who is known for his eagles, birds, and other animal carvings. Schimmel carved this elaborate scene of Adam and Eve in the garden c. 1850–90, featuring a picket fence, palm-like tree, and a snake at the center.

Schimmel arrived about 1860 in Central Pennsylvania and found support within the close-knit community of German and Scotch-Irish farmers, who purchased or traded food and lodging for his work. Using a common folding pocket knife, Schimmel carved deep, angular cuts to articulate his eagle, then applied a white primer and common house paints. His student Aaron Mountz would continue this carving tradition into the early twentieth century.

This sculpture once belonged to famed folk art collector Titus Geesey (1893–1969), who donated it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1955.

Image 📸: Adam and Even, Wilhelm Schimmel (1817–1890), Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania, c. 1850–90. Wood; painted decoration. Titus Geesey Collection, 1955, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1955-94-2

Step into the world of the American Revolution through the lens of clothing in "Dressing the Revolution: Fashion and Politics 1760–1789," now on view at Historic Deerfield. Featuring more than 20 garments, accessories, textiles, and prints, this exhibition reveals how fashion shaped—and reflected—the political, social, and cultural upheavals of the late 18th century. From the consumer boom of imported British goods to the emergence of homespun as a symbol of resistance, dress becomes a powerful tool for understanding identity, status, and allegiance in Revolutionary America.

As tensions with Britain escalated, what people wore carried new meaning, signaling political beliefs as much as personal taste. The exhibition explores how colonists navigated shifting expectations—from boycotts and spinning bees to the challenges of wartime scarcity—and how clothing continued to express both republican ideals and aspirations in the new nation. On view through January 3, 2027, this compelling exhibition invites visitors to reconsider the Revolution not just as a series of events, but as a lived experience woven into everyday life.

🔗 For more information, please visit the museum's website: https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/dressing-the-revolution-fashion-and-politics-1760-1789/

Image 📸: Matthew and Mary Darly (English) Oh Heigh Oh, Or a View of the Back Settlements. England, London, 1776. Engraving on laid paper with hand-coloring. Gift of Henry N. Flynt and Helen Geier Flynt, HD 56.029

Jacob Medinger (1856_1932) worked with sgraffito artist William J. McAllister (1879–1956) to assist with decorating much of his redware pottery. However, this was not McAllister's first involvement with redware. He had already worked with potter William H. Gleaves (d. 1944) of Lansdale, Montgomery County, who operated a business called variously the Colonial Studio or Colonial Art Pottery.

Gleaves rarely signed his pottery prior to firing. Gleaves taught free pottery and modeling classes for adults, three evening per week, at Lansdale Junior High School and the Norristown YMCA in 1935 and 1936. The most elaborate of Gleaves's work are figured of a dog and a man, revealing his talent at sculpting in clay. Both are signed and dated; the underside of the dog is inscribed "W.H. Gleaves / North Wales / Pa / 2-15-31" and the base o the man [seen in the image] is inscribed "W.H. Gleaves / 1931." The man represents the legendary "Pied Piper of Hamelin," a rat catcher who played a magical flute to attract rats, which he then led to a nearby river and drowned.

For more information on Jacob Medinger, William McAllister, and William H. Gleaves, pick up a copy of Americana Insights 2025, available for purchase on our website: https://americanainsights.org/book-release-2025/

Image 📸: Figure of the Pied Piper, William H. Gleaves, North Wales, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 1931. Lead-glazed earthenware. Collection of Bradley and Deanne Hamilton (Photo: Gavin Ashworth)

Have you signed up yet for the annual ceramics symposium co-hosted by Colonial Williamsburg and the Museum of Early South Decorative Arts (MESDA)?

Scholars, collectors, and enthusiasts are invited to take part in the upcoming ceramics symposium held June 4–6, 2026. Rather than focusing on a single theme, this year’s conference centers on the shared pursuit of new knowledge in the field, bringing together leading voices to explore ceramics through fresh research, object-based study, and interdisciplinary dialogue. From archaeological discoveries to connoisseurship and making traditions, the program highlights the many ways ceramics can illuminate early American life and material culture.

Set within the historic landscape of Colonial Williamsburg, the conference offers a rich environment for examining ceramics not only as artistic and functional objects, but as powerful evidence of the people, places, and histories that shaped them. Our editor, Lisa Minardi, will be presenting on new discoveries in Pennsylvania German redware based on Volume 3 of Americana Insights.

For more information and to register, please visit the symposium's website:

https://web.cvent.com/event/4557b4ab-2814-40cb-8392-3908743f93e1/summary

Americana Insights is pleased to be a sponsor of this year's symposium and Dr. Minardi's presentation!

Image: Tankards; Bristol, England, ca. 1731;tin-glazed earthenware. Museum Purchase, 2010-67 with archaeologicalexamplerecovered in York County, Virginia

A new open access essay from the 2024 volume of Americana Insights invites readers into the complex and often contradictory world of nineteenth-century artist Charles C. Hofmann. In “Charles C. Hofmann’s Paintings Along the Schuylkill River: Landscapes of Peace, Prosperity, and Despair,” Christopher Malone explores how Hofmann’s landscapes capture a rapidly changing Pennsylvania, where post–Civil War progress, industry, and rural life coexisted along the Schuylkill River. His paintings present orderly, even idyllic scenes filled with farms, workers, and architecture—visual narratives that seem to celebrate growth and stability.⁠
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Yet beneath these composed surfaces lies a more troubling reality. Hofmann, himself an itinerant painter and frequent resident of almshouses, often omitted the hardship, illness, and poverty that defined these institutions, leaving viewers to confront what is unseen as much as what is depicted. His work ultimately documents not only lost landscapes, but also the social tensions embedded within them, offering a powerful lens into nineteenth-century life and American folk art. This essay is open access on our website, offering an opportunity to engage with new scholarship on a little-known but deeply compelling artist.⁠

Please visit AmericanaInsights.org to read this and other fascinating essays from past publications:

https://americanainsights.org/essays/charles-c-hofmanns-paintings-along-the-schuylkill-river-landscapes-of-peace-prosperity-and-despair/

Image: Charles C. Hofmann, Wernersville, Taken from the North-Side, September 4, 1879. Oil on zinc, 25 1⁄2 × 33 1⁄2 in. Courtesy of the American Folk Art Museum, Gift of Ralph Esmerian, 2005.8.14

Simon Singer (1822–1894) was born in Wangen in the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Singer brothers arrived in New York City in 1846, and Simon immediately found work as a brickmaker. Two years later, he moved to Nockamixon Township, Bucks County, and began working with potter John Herstine (1783–1861). Like many other potters, Singer married his employer’s daughter. He wed Margaret “Rebecca” Herstine (1830–1900) in 1849, and the couple had ten children. On October 5, 1862, Singer purchased the John Monday pottery, which included the land from which the Monday and Mumbauer potteries procured clay for decades.

Singer continued the tradition of redware presentation pieces, and he was particularly adept at trailing words onto the surfaces of deep dishes with slip cups. Many of his slip-trailed dishes include Singer’s own name and trade, and he frequently signed the undersides of his wares with a cursive “S." In 1886, two local historians commissioned Simon Singer to create commemorative dishes from a mold dated 1810. These historians—Edwin Atlee Barber (1851–1916) and Abel B. Haring (1847–1920)—had notable ties to southeastern Pennsylvania’s dying redware industry. Haring was the son of David Haring (1801–1871), a potter from Nockamixon Township. Haring’s dish descended through his family to his granddaughter Edna Stover Pullinger, who donated it to the Bucks County Historical Society in 1984, almost one hundred years after its creation.

🔗 For more information, pick up your copy of Americana Insights 2025 and read Christopher Malone's essay "The Potters of Haycock Mountain: Conrad Mumbauer, John Monday, and Simon Singer."

Image 📸: Dish for Abel Brinton Haring, Simon Singer, Haycock Township, Bucks County, PA, 1886. Lead-glazed earthenware, Diam. 12 3⁄4 in. Mercer Museum, 84.15.001 (Photo: Michael E. Myers)

Inscribed: “Made over / the 1810 pattern / for H. H. Youngken / in Haycock 1886 to / A. B. Haring Esq / S. Singer / Potter.”

Reminder: Exhibition Closing!

Historic Trappe's exhibition "From Hubener to Medinger: Redware Potters of Southeastern Pennsylvania," focusing on the Pennsylvania German redware from this year's volume, will close this Sunday, March 29.

Redware made by potters Georg Hubener, Conrad Mumbauer, and Samuel Troxel, among others, is featured and visitors will learn about 18th- and 19th-century pottery production as well as 20th-century redware revival movements. The exhibition features over 100 outstanding objects, drawn from many of the finest collections of Pennsylvania German redware in both public and private hands.⁠
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For more information, please visit Historic Trappe's website: https://historictrappe.org/exhibitions/⁠
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Lead support for the exhibition is provided by Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates with additional support by the American Folk Art Society, Steve and Susan Babinsky, Robert and Katharine Booth, Edward W. Kane and Martha J. Wallace Family Foundation, Pook & Pook, Limerick Township Historical Society, and Holly Adams Cairns.⁠
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In celebration of , Americana Insights reflects on the enduring legacy of quilts as both art and archive. As explored in the essay “Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories” from the 2024 volume of Americana Insights, quilts are far more than decorative bedcovers—they are deeply personal objects that capture the lived experiences of individuals and communities across centuries. From early works shaped by Indigenous, European, and global influences to nineteenth-century quilts tied to the rise of the cotton economy, these textiles embody both creativity and complex histories, inviting viewers to consider the people and stories stitched into every piece.

Today, quilts continue to serve as powerful storytellers, bridging past and present. Whether made for warmth, display, or social expression, they reflect the evolving identity of the United States and the diverse voices that shape it. As highlighted in the essay, quilts have long fostered community and connection, while also addressing moments of joy, struggle, and change. On this National Quilting Day, Americana Insights honors the makers—known and unknown—whose work forms a vibrant, ever-growing fabric of a nation.

This essay is available to read for free on our website:

https://americanainsights.org/essays/fabric-of-a-nation-american-quilt-stories/

Image 📸: Carolina Lily Quilt, United States, 1830–early 1840s. Printed plain weave cotton, pieced, appliquéd, and quilted. Museum purchase with funds donated by Jane Burke, Penny Vinik, Ruth Oliver Jolliffe, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and the Jane Marsland and Judith A. Marsland Fund, 2008.651.