Mary Louise McLaughlin (September 29, 1847 – January 19, 1939) was an American ceramic painter and studio potter from Cincinnati, Ohio, and the main local competitor of Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, who founded Rookwood Pottery.

Mary Louise McLaughlin was born September 29, 1847, to a wealthy family of Cincinnati, her father being the owner of a successful dry goods company in the city.

Showing an artistic ability at a young age, McLaughlin did not take formal art lessons until 1871 at a private school for girls.

Eventually other artists began utilizing this same technique, and in 1879 McLaughlin founded the Cincinnati Pottery Club along with Clara Chipman Newton and others.

When Rookwood Pottery was opened, many of the workers from Frederick Dallas joined her team and effectively hindered some of the aspirations of McLaughlin and her group.

The following year, Frederick Dallas died and his shop closed, leaving McLaughlin and her club to rent a room at Rookwood Pottery.

In 1883 Storer evicted the club due to the conflict of interest involved in housing them, though she continued to have her pottery pieces made at Rookwood.

He went so far as to demand the withdrawal of a statement by Clara Chipman Newton in an 1893 pottery catalog to the effect that McLaughlin was the founder of the technique in America.

[1][2] McLaughlin exhibited two etchings and a portrait of Henry L. Fry at the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.