About Justin W. Thomas

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A little bit about myself.

I am a resident of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and a collector, researcher and writer about American utilitarian pottery production from the seventeenth through the early twentieth century. I have about twenty years of experience working for different media outlets in Boston, which has provided a journalistic background for my pottery writing.

I have studied at archaeology departments, museums and private collections across the country, publishing many research articles about American potteries in regional and national publications. I was also a guest curator at the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport, assembling a temporary exhibit of locally made pottery from the Colonial period through the early twentieth century, as well as helping write the exhibit catalog, Potters on the Merrimac: A Century of New England Ceramics. The exhibit received national attention and press. Some possible exhibits that may be happening in the future include opportunities at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Historical Society and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts – stay tuned for possible details.

Some of the regional and national publications that I have contributed 1,000-5,000 word original feature stories to through the years with pictures, include Americana Insights, the New England Antiques Journal, Maine Antique Digest, Antiques And The Arts Weekly, Antiques & Auction News and Untapped New York, among others.

Some of the museums and events that I have presented my research at include the Annual Meeting of the Council for Historical Archaeology at the University of Delaware, Dish Camp at Historic Eastfield Village in New York, the Charlestown, Massachusetts Historical Society, the Peabody, Massachusetts Historical Society, the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport, Massachusetts, the Beverly, Massachusetts Historical Society, the Old York Historical Society in York, Maine, the Bidwell House Museum in Monterey, Massachusetts, Historic New England, the Ceramics Study Club in Boston, the Amesbury Carriage Museum in Amesbury, Massachusetts, the Stoneware Collectors Group Presentation at the Bennington Museum in Vermont and the Yarmouth Historical Society in Yarmouth, Maine, among others.

I have also worked with museums, historical societies and archaeology departments all over the East Coast, such as the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., the Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the Rochester Museum & Science Center in Rochester, New York, the Das Haus Museum in Bergholz, New York, the New York State Museum in Albany, the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, Historic New England, Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Maine State Museum in Augusta, Maine, the Baker Library at Harvard University and the City of Boston Archaeology Department, among many others.

I also assembled a group of museum and archaeology professionals for a special redware conference in 2021 that was hosted by Historic Beverly; the guests included myself, Amanda Lange – Curatorial Department Director and Curator of Historic Interior at Historic Deerfield, Bonnie Campbell Lilienfeld – Assistant Director, Curatorial Affairs at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, Tom Kelleher – Historian and Curator of Mechanical Arts at Old Sturbridge Village, Abby Battis – Associate Director for Collections, Historic Beverly, Massachusetts potter Rick Hamelin and Joe Bagley – Boston City Archaeologist.

Additionally, I provided a written review of the Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum’s two-year exhibit, “Thrown, Fired, and Glazed: The Redware Tradition from Pennsylvania and Beyond” for an AASLH Award of Excellence in 2021. The other person chosen to provide a review was the head of ceramics for Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. The Landis Valley Museum was eventually honored with the award.

Furthermore, I have authored nine books, as part of my ongoing pottery book series, published by Historic Beverly in Massachusetts; I am also currently working on my tenth and eleventh books about production in An Early Industry of Household Wares: The Red Earthenware of Salem Village, South Danvers, Peabody and Salem, Massachusetts, and A Monumental History: Stories of Red Earthenware Production in Western Massachusetts and the Berkshires, which will probably be published in late 2025 and 2026.

Here are links to each of my published books:

1. The Beverly Pottery: The Wares of Charles A. Lawrence
2. The Moses B. Paige Company: The Last of the Peabody Potteries
3. The Dawn of Independence, the Death of an Industry: The Pottery of Charlestown, Massachusetts
4. South Amesbury’s Red Earthenware & Stoneware: The 1791-1820 William Pecker Pottery
5. A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod
6. A City on the River: The Early Red Earthenware of the Hartford, Connecticut Area
7. From One Town Came Many: The Red Earthenware Industry of North Yarmouth, Maine
8. An Influential Family of Early Potters: The Clarks of New Hampshire and Related Businesses
9. America’s Great Awakening and Migration: The Red Earthenware of Western New York