Rookwood Pottery
Active 1880-1960

Rookwood was a highly successful ceramic company, founded by Maria Longworth Nichols in 1880 as an amateur pottery club. Rookwood soon became a sophisticated enterprise under the able management of William Watts Taylor, who was hired as general business manager in 1883.

Taylor had a three-point plan for making Rookwood a household name: standardize the product line, market products through fashionable stores, and offer what people wanted, as determined by market surveys. He hired a chemist to develop the unique matte glazes the pottery is known for. He encouraged innovation and risk-taking and paid special attention to the pottery markings, which added to its appeal to collectors. He brought in professional artists and let them build a career around painting pottery. One of his artists, Kataro Shirayamadani, worked as one of the pottery's outstanding painters from 1890 until his death at age 93 in 1947.

Rookwood pottery won awards in such prestigious international competitions as the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo and the 1901 Exposition International de Ceramique et de Verrerie in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1980, 100 years after its founding, a piece of Rookwood pottery sold for $23,000 at an auction at Christie's in New York, setting a world record price for pottery.

The original Rookwood Pottery closed in 1961. They sold the rights and the molds to a clock company in Mississippi, who made a few pieces from 1961-1965. A Michigan dentist purchased the molds in 1983. He does one firing of tiles a year using comparable glazes and sells exclusively to retailers. The original Rookwood Pottery factory is now a restaurant called, you guessed it, The Rookwood Pottery Restaurant.