Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw – A Lecture with Allison Robinson

Boscobel House and Gardens is proud to welcome Allison Robinson, Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Women’s History and Public History, to discuss the New-York Historical Society‘s current exhibition Crafting Freedom: The Life and Legacy of Free Black Potter Thomas W. Commeraw. This NYHS exhibition includes a piece of stoneware pottery by Thomas Commeraw from Boscobel’s collection.

After 250 years of racial anonymity, the recent exhibition at NYHS gives overdue attention to a skilled African American craftsman whose racial identity was long overlooked. Crafting Freedom, an exhibit curated by Robinson at the New York Historical Society, presents more than 20 stoneware jars and jugs produced by Commeraw’s pottery between the late 1790s and 1819, as well as examples by his contemporaries. Robinson will guide attendees through Commeraw’s life’s work, which produced not only beautiful utilitarian forms, but his accomplishments as an entrepreneur, advocate, family man, and leader within New York City’s Black community during Early American history.