Transcript

6.12.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye, and today
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I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated June twenty
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twenty five. As a reminder, Radio Eye is a reading
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service intended for people who are blind or have other
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disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. Police
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Join me now for the first article titled three formerly
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enslaved artists created beautiful pottery one hundred and fifty years ago,
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and now their wares are coveted around the world. The
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stunning vessels from the H. Wilson Company were forgotten for generations,
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only to gain new appreciation for the craftsmanship that went
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into them by Jacoba Eurest. In eighteen fifty six, the
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Reverend John McCamey Wilson, Junior, a Presbyterian minister and entrepreneur
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interested in Clay's science, relocated from North Carolina to Texas.
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There in the Capodi Hills, a rural, sparse enclave in Guadala,
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Lupe County, twelve miles from the town of Sedgwyn, Wilson
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opened a business called Guadalupe Pottery. Wilson mainly sold jugs, churns, crocks,
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and cemetery flower shars. The pots featured crescent handles and
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a deep chocolate colored interior of liquefied clay. Before refrigerators
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in ice boxes, high fire, non porous pottery was essential
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to life the tupperware or ziplock bags of the nineteenth century.
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Clay pots preserved everything from grains, beef and butter, to
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whisky and even drinking water. The potters who worked under
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Wilson's direction mostly used alkaline glaze, one of the oldest
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methods in ceramics, to create a glassy exterior from a
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slurry of wood, ash, sand and clay, an arduous process.
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In the eighteen fifties, it took days to stoke underground
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wood burning kilns to a high enough temperature for a
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successful firing. Three of Wilson's potters were enslaved servants who
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traveled to Texas with him, Hiram James and Wallace. For
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more than a decade, these men were responsible for nearly
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every facet of Guadelupe Pottery's production. From mixing clay and
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expertly throwing the pots on a kick wheel, took glazing
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and stacking vessels, and meticulously controlling the temperature and duration
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of the kiln's flames. The men kept working for the Reverend.
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Even after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January first,
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eighteen sixty three, in Texas, slavery didn't end until June nineteenth,
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eighteen sixty five, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in
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Galveston and issued General Order Number three informing the people
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of Texas that all who had been enslaved were free.
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The event commemorated as June teenth. In eighteen sixty nine,
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Hiram founded his own stoneware business at a new site
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with Jane Eames and Wallace H. Wilson and Company. Though
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not biologically related, all three took their enslaver's surname, the
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practice of some black Americans at the time. Some scholars
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believed that H. Wilson and Company was the first business
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in Texas founded and owned by formerly enslaved people. A
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century and a half later. The pots they made are
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celebrated in the ceramics world in silvery grays and greens
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with uneven salt drips and textured glazes that resemble the
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moon's surface or sometimes an orange peel. Wilson wares are
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coveted both as obje dart and for their extraordinary story
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of black self determination in the post war South. Wilson
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Pottery now resides in museums across the United States, from
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the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to the Museum
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of Fine Arts Houston. An indelible part of the country's
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entrepreneurial and creative heritage. The story of Hiram, James and
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Wallace Wilson is woven through with threads of folklore, given
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the sparse records kept at that time, particularly for people
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born into slavery. But over the last fifty years, researchers
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have uncovered more details about the Wilsons. Georgiana Greer, the
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San Antonio pediatrician and ceramics collector Officionado, was passionate about
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locating abandoned kilns, and she left a trove of Wilson
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information behind, including a nineteen seventy three taped interview with
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James Wilson's son, James Wilson Junior. Emancipation offered to Wilsons
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an opportunity none had ever expected. Establishing a pottery business
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was complex and costly. It meant finding a suitable sight,
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testing clay, constructing a kiln, and hiring proficient workers, and
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the men did all this in an intensely dangerous environment,
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said Ashley Williams, a recent fellow at the Smithsonian American
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Art Museum. In the late eighteen sixties, Black residence of
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Guadalupek County filed almost two hundred complaints with the Freedmen's
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Bureau for unpaid wages and violent crimes perpetrated against them.
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A Baptist missionary from Maine, the Reverend Leonard Ilsley, helped
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Hiram by six hundred acres of land for five hundred
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dollars and likely either gave Hiram a personal loan or
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served as a guaranteur in the transaction. When Hiram died
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in eighteen eighty four, survived by his wife Senia and
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eleven children, Ilsley served as administrator of his estate. One
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of Hiram's great great granddaughters, Laverne Lewis Britt, first discovered
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her connection to the Potters after her retirement when she
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became interested in genealogy. Over the course of five years,
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she researched and wrote a book called In Praise of
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Him from Wilson, which describes how her ancestor created a
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thriving post slavery community in Capote Hiram set aside ten
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of his six hundred acres for a Baptist church and
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became its minister. The white steepled chapel remains active to day,
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beside a cemetery with cedar and crape myrtle trees. Many
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Wilsons have been laid to rest there, including Hiram, whose
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grave is marked by a tall obelisk. Hiram also founded
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a one room school house, where Paula King Harper, another
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of his descendants, says her grandmother once taught. King Harper,
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is the current president of the Wilson Pottery Foundation. On
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the phone, she described how interest in her celebrated ancestors
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technique has spread in collector circles since the organization's founding.
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In nineteen ninety nine, a pottery collector in San Antonio
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was at a garage sale and noticed the green salt
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glazed drip from underneath dirt that had dried on a
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gallon jug. They purchased it for less than ten dollars,
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went home, cleaned it up, and guessed what it was.
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A stamped h Wilson. Finding that stamp is now the
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equivalent of finding assigned painting by a renowned artist. King
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Harper once sat at an auction that included several pieces
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of Wilson pottery from some one's private estate. There was
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a beautiful, pristine five gallon jug I watched sell for
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twelve thousand dollars, she said. Traditionally, clay artists who made
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quotidian jugs and jars rather than purely esthetic works, have
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been considered second teer maker's ranking below sculptors, But over
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the last few decades, contemporary and historic seramicists like the
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Wilsons are receiving new scholarly and art world attention. Williams,
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the recent Smithsonian Fellow, is researching the Wilsons as part
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of her doctorate at Columbia University. She notes that most
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enslaved potters wouldn't have been able to inscribe their names
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or initials on a pot, but once the Wilson potters
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were free, they added a maker's mark, which made all
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the difference. Future generations were able to dive into the
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records and find out more about the remarkable potters. Because
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we can tie the makers to these objects, which is
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so rare, it allows us to see the story about
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the resilience of the Wilson potters during slavery and their
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extreme success and survival. Williams said the Wilson's style may
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have been influenced by the works coming out of the
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Edgefield District in South Carolina, a place then known as
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a kind of pottery mecca. It was famous for massive,
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bulbous jars and glazes, features that the early Wilson potts share.
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Edgefield has its own significant history of highly skilled black craftsmen,
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including David Drake, the earliest known enslaved potter to inscribe
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his work. Later, the Wilsons pottery took on more distinctive features.
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The men started out using alkaline glaze, but once they
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opened their own business, they switched to salt glaze, likely
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for its strength and waterproofing properties. Salt glaze also produces
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more consistent colors and textures, such as the bumpy orange
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peel finish admired by H. Wilson and Company collectors. At
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the time, the method was uncommon in Texas, according to
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Michelle Johnson, project manager of the William J. Hill Texas
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Artisans and Artists Archive at the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens,
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part of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and it
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was dangerous. She said because salt blaze produces highly toxic
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chlorine gas from the wet salt thrown into the kiln
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during firing. For this reason, contemporary ceramicists avoid the method altogether.
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The Wilsons may have learned the technique from Isaac Suttle's,
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an Ohio born potter known for salt glazing, who was
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listed in the United States Census as living in Seguin
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at the time. Lid rims are another notable element of h.
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Wilson and Company's jars. At the first pottery making sight
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during their enslavement, the men made more tie down rims
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jars without lids that require paper or cloth as a cover,
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which were easier and faster to make. Later, at their
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own shop, they crafted rims fitted for lids. Those lid
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rims allowed for more watertight storage, but they also required
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more sophisticated expertise. If you think you may have stumbled
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on one of these treasures at a garage or a
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state sale, look for a horseshoe like handle, the most
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significant visual identifier of a Wilson pot It's still unclear
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why Hiram, James and Wallace switched to these thicker rolled
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handles from their original edgefield inspired crescents. It may have
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been because horseshoe handles are sturdier, offering more surface connection
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to the pott's body. It's another puzzling question that Williams
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is pursuing and hopes to answer in the future. It
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took a long time for the art world to discover
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the Wilson's creations. After Hiram's death in eighteen eighty four,
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James and Wallace Wilson went on to work at another
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pottery site run by Marian Durham, a potter from South
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Carolina who had moved to Texas with John Chandler, who
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was most likely his enslaved servant at the time. By
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the time the Wilsons joined them, Durham and Chandler were
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in business together. That site closed in nineteen o three.
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These pots remained in circulation, but many details of their
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story were lost. Decades later, an anthropology graduate student named
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Elmer Joe Brackner Junior conducted a magnetometry survey to fine
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buried pottery clay contains iron oxides that can become magnetized.
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At the original Guadalupe Pottery site, he found what's known
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as a ground hog kiln, a uniquely Southern semi subterranean
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kiln used in the nineteenth century for firing alkaline glazed pottery.
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At the second site, home of the independent H. Wilson
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and Company, Brackner found ceramic glazed shards and another groundhog kiln.
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His research and that of Georgiana Greer, the ceramic historian,
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helped piece together the Wilson's unusual story. After many years
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of advocacy by the Wilson Pottery Foundation, art historians and
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curators began scouring land deeds, court documents, and hand written
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capacity marks numbers that denote the volume of each jug
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to present a fuller picture of the Wilsons, sometimes correcting
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previous theories about their methodology and timeline. Texas ceramic artist
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Arlene Greene researches the wilsons past while creating her own
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pottery to honor their legacy. In twenty eighteen, she interviewed
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Wilson descendants and collectors and visited historical societies in Texas
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for archival information. Two years later, she curated an exhibition
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on her campus in Fort Worth. The show also displayed
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ceramic pieces she created based on the work of the
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Wilson potters. The narrative continues to evolve, due in no
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small part to proud descendants of Hiram, James and Wallace.
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Every three year years, hundreds of people gather in Segwyn,
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Texas for a jubilant three day Wilson Family reunion that
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is open to the public. In twenty twenty three, festivities
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included the Wilson Pottery Foundation Gala and a tenth anniversary
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celebration at the Wilson Pottery Museum. The last reunion fell
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on the weekend before June teenth, and the reunion committee
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arranged a kick off concert Sunday evening, followed by June
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teenth events in Seguin's Downtown Square. I was fortunate to
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grow up in Texas in the nineteen eighties, around the
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time when our cousin Laverne Lewis Britt had uncovered the history,
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explains to Sean mc clinton Holland, the photographer of this
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story and a Wilson descendant through his maternal grandmother, I
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grew up knowing bits of the story and visiting the church.
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He describes the process of documenting Hiram Wilson's legacy as
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a healing journey to think he was born into slavery
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and was able to accomplish so much. Shortly thereafter, he says,
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it's inspiring and motivating to think of all the freedoms
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we have now and that we really have to push
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a bit harder next. Salmon and the Pacific Northwest are
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facing a new threat, booming populations of seals and sea lions.
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The mammals return to the region represented a conservation's success story,
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but their appetite for endangered fish is upsetting the balance
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of a delicate ecosystem. By Sheryl Cats. On a cold
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night along the coast of Washington State, two women on
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boogie boards paddle furiously across surging waters, clad and survival
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suits and headlamps. Jennifer Sevigner and Amanda Summers are heading
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back from a harbor seal gathering in Port Susan Bay
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with dry bags full of seal scat. The pair are
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biologists employed by this Stiliguamish tribe of Indians, and their
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mining the smelly, oily stuff for solutions to a wrenching
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conflict between some of the region's most cherished marine creatures.
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The flotillas of seals and sea lions plying Puget Sound
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today are a conservation success story. Because of their competition
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with fishermen, these animals were the target of state sponsored
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bounty hunter programs in Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. By nineteen sixty,
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the region's pinniped numbers had been dramatically reduced. With the
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Marine Mammal Protection Act of nineteen seventy two, hunting them
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became illegal, and their numbers rebounded, but the salmon populations
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on which they prey plummeted. The causes of the salmon
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crisis include habitat lost to urban development and migration routes
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blocked by dams and roads. As cities have pumped water
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out of rivers, they have also reduced the amount of
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water in the streams. The shallow water is warmer, and
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salmon need colder temperatures to spawn and rear young. Climate
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change is also warming waters and altering weather patterns, disturbing
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both the fresh water and ocean stages of the salmon
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life cycle. With the Pacific Northwest's once teeming salmon runs
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now just a thin trickle, the growing numbers of hungry
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pinnipeds have an outsize impact. Watersheds are out of balance
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and Pinniped predation on salmon is a symptom of that,
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says Cecilia Gobin, a conservation policy analyst with the Northwest
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Indian Fisheries Commission, a consortium of twenty fishing tribes in
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western Washington. As the fish return to spawn in the
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rivers and streams where they were hatched, bottlenecks like dams
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stir up pinniped feeding frenzies. The outlook is especially dire
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for chinook, the largest of the Pacific salmon also known
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as king salmon. Chinook are the centerpiece of the state's
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billion dollar fishing industry. Washington allows both commercial and recreational
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salmon fishing, with regulations on quantity and size. Salmon are
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also a critical food source for many species of wildlife,
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including Washington's beloved and critically endangered Southern resident killer whales.
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For Native Americans, who have fished these waters for millennia,
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salmon are the backbone of their diet and culture. Salmon
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related activities shape the vocabulary of tribal languages and drive
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the yearly calendar. The cycle begins with the return of
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the first salmon in spring, which Pacific Northwest tribal nations
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honor with the first salmon feast. Goebin, a Tulilip tribal member,
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says her people believe that the first fish is a
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scout for the rest of the salmon community to see
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how well we've been taking care of this place of
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the waters. The tribe honors this fish during the ceremonial dinner.
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We eat the first salmon with the community, and then
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we return his remains back to the water so that
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he can go back to his villages and report what
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he saw. If the salmon population collapses, she adds, everything
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stands to be lost. You're losing resources that are tied
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to the language and language that's tied to the land.
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The salmon's demise also threatens tribe's treaty fishing rights, says
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Pegan Frank, executive director of the advocacy group Salmon Defense.
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Frank's father in law, Billy Frank Junior, was an Esqually
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fisherman and eater of the fish wars that culminated in
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the nineteen seventies with Washington tribes gaining the right to
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catch as many as half the salmon in their traditional territories.
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Frank recalls when her husband, Willie Frank, the third Also,
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a fisherman would come back with many toads full of salmon. Now,
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she says they barely even get one. She fears that
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salmon will disappear during her lifetime unless the pinniped population
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is controlled. How it gets done, she says that will
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be interesting. Efforts to keep pinnipeds away from salmon have
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been under way for years with little success. Loud noises,
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for instance, from firecrackers to high pitched underwater pulses, damaged
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some animal's hearing, and sea lions that were captured and
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released hundreds of miles away usually just swam right back.
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We're fighting an uphill battles, says Casey Clark, lead Marine
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Mamma researcher for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife,
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Because once an animal has figured out that there's a
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really good food source somewhere, it's incredible what it takes
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to get them to stop. In the Columbia River Basin,
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sea lions have scarfed down so many salmon that habitual
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offenders face lethal removal. This exemption to the Marine Mammal
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Protection Act targets sea lions that continually hang around and
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gorge themselves near the fish ladders designed to help salmon
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make their way around dams and other obstacles. A long
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standing limited coal was expanded in twenty twenty to measure
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the benefits to salmon. Since then, one hundred ninety nine
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sea lions have been killed, sparing as many as sixty
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one thousand salmon, according to the Washington Department of Fish
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and Wildlife. So far, the program has had promising results,
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with fewer sea lions lurking near the fish ladders and
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the outlook for chinook improving. The permit, which expires this August,
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will likely be extended. The concept of killing pinnipeds to
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save fish draws fire from animal rights advocates and raises
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concerns about the broader environmental impacts. You're going to wind
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up with issues, says Casey Maclin, executive director of sr III,
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which operates a nonprofit marine animal hospital in the Seattle area.
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The ecosystem is a web, and if you pull on
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one string, we're not going to know what that's going
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to cause. That's why Sevigner and Summers are out on
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their boogie boards scooping up seal poop, managing an endangered
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species that is preyed on by another endangered species is
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a complex thing, Sevigner says. The biologists are working with
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State Fish and Wildlife scientists, one of several collaborations between
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Puget Sound tribes and other agencies studying ways to bolster
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salmon while keeping both populations healthy. While feasting sea lions
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can have a visible toll on salmon, Less is known
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about the dining habits of seals. Fishbones in the scat
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will reveal how much and what types of salmon seals
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in the area are eating, along with genetic materials showing
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the salmon consumed by individual seals. Preliminary results for the
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Port Susan Bay area suggest that seals aren't having a
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major impact. According to Sevigne, while other river systems may
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have different scenarios, it seems like salmon are not a
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really big part of our seal diet, she explains. The
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still Aguamish are working on habitat restoration, rewilding former farm
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lands into cool, shady pools where young salmon can grow
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and strengthen before their arduous journey to the sea. Scientists
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from the Port Gamble Scalumn tribe are also working with
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the nonprofit Conservation Resarch Organization, Ocean's Initiative and the Advocacy
24:14
group Long Live the King's as well as state agencies
24:19
to test a promising new deterrent. The device startles seals
24:24
hanging around salmon run obstacles and drives them away from
24:28
the buffet. The underwater system, which emits short, random bursts
24:34
that sound like nails on a chalkboard, is much quieter
24:37
than old school noise makers and doesn't harm animals hearing,
24:42
but it distracts seals buying fish just enough time to
24:46
get through the latter, says Rob Williams, a scientist with
24:49
Ocean's Initiative. In trials so far, Williams says the device
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cuts salmon predation by up to eighty percent for the
24:59
salmon people. As the Pacific Northwest nations call themselves the
25:04
need to give fish a fighting chance as urgent. We
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only have a short window of time to recover salmon,
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frank says. If we missed that chance, then we will
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be the generation that let the salmon go Next. Ask Smithsonian,
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you've got questions, We've got experts from Francis Gellis Denver.
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Whatever happened to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's tradition of fireside chats.
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The answer is from Claire Jerry, Curator of Political History,
25:39
National Museum of American History. The spread of radio gave
25:43
Roosevelt the means to have his speeches broadcast into listeners
25:47
homes in real time through relatively informal messages he called
25:52
fireside chats. But while Roosevelt was the first to be
25:55
able to employ this approach on a large scale, he
25:59
was not the last. Every president since then has found
26:02
ways to use the media of their day to deliver personal,
26:06
conversational messages directly to the public. Jimmy Carter once gave
26:11
a televised fireside chat while sitting by an actual White
26:15
House fireplace. Ronald Reagan didn't use the fireside title or motif,
26:21
but he did deliver radio addresses to the public each Saturday.
26:26
Barack Obama was the first president to communicate with the
26:29
public through social media, a practice carried on by his
26:33
successors Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The title and medium
26:38
may have changed, but the spirit of the presidential fireside
26:41
chat lives on. Finally, question from Joshua may Sel, Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
26:51
Is there any pre European native American sites or structures
26:55
still in use today. The answer is from Dennis Sotai,
27:00
cultural Specialist, National Museum of the American Indian. The village
27:05
of Sky City in New Mexico has been in use
27:09
since the year eleven, fifty before European contact. It is
27:13
said to be the oldest continually inhabited community in North America.
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The native people belonging to the Acoma Pueblo tribe who
27:21
live there to day are believed to have descended from
27:24
early Pebloans, Macallan, and other ancient peoples. Sky City is
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situated on a three hundred and sixty five foot high
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mesa about sixty miles west of Albuquerque. The village does
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not have electricity, sewers, or running water. To compensate for
27:42
the lack of these conveniences, the village depends on ancient
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techniques that were in place before the first Europeans arrived.
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For instance, the villagers still collect rain water in a
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natural hole in the middle of the village, just as
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their ancient ancestors did. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian
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Magazine for today. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank
28:08
you for listening, and have a great day.