Paul Revere Pottery
[2] Facilitated by Guerrier, the Saturday Evening Girls Club was a Progressive era reading group consisting of young Jewish and Italian working women.
The group met at the North Bennet Street Industrial School (NBSIS), a community charity building that provided educational opportunities and training in vocational skills for both boys and girls.
provided social and intellectual stimulation for the young women, exposing them to an array of experience across religious, language, and ethnic divides.
[7]Guerrier and Brown suspected that once trained, the pottery works sold by the S.E.G.s would provide an opportunity to gain additional income for many of the girls whose endeavors for higher education stood in direct contrast to the economic disparity and needs of their families.
According to the institution, pottery classes did not increase the young women's potential for success as future mothers and assistants to their families.
secured funds through musical performance, reciting dialogues and plays, and poetry readings to wealthy members of the community and at different institutional galas and socials.
She gave the S.E.G.s a year to become self-sustaining, provided them with a new building for their expanding pottery business, and then withdrew her financial support in 1915.
Paul Revere Pottery continued to flourish for several decades, garnering national and international recognition through features in magazines, journals, and newsletters.
[14] The earthenware works came in numerous forms, operated at multiple levels of function and utility, and had complex, decorative glaze surfaces.
[15] The studio primarily utilized yellow, blue, green, gray, white, and brown glazes at its onset.
The range of glaze formulas and colorant usage expanded over time as technical skill was built and funding was more readily established.
Soon, the pottery had a rich array of colors on their ware that played off and activated more fully the fanciful design elements.
The motifs ranged from simplified, country landscapes and houses of import to scenes from American history, such as Paul Revere making his famous ride.
Floral designs including stylized lotus, tulips, and roses adorned many surfaces in equal measure with barnyard or symbolic wild animals, which pranced alongside winding script or grassy horizon lines.
Bowls and plates with phrases or mottos involving allusions to virtues, or pieces bearing individualized names, were the most popular from the pottery, especially within the run of ware that was designed as a children's line.
[16] Every pottery piece is signed with “S.E.G.” on the bottom, signifying the reading group, followed by the initials of the young woman artist who made or finished the form.
