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 1 Brown County Pottery 1932–1953 When Helen and Walter Griffiths began their lives together as husband and wife in 1911, they had already passed 30. They had been settled in their separate roles, artist and engineer, but were eager to start the new adventure of creating a family and growing old together. Twenty years later, like millions of other Americans, their lives were forever changed by the Great Depression. With the loss of Walter’s engineering job, and without hope of finding another, they had no choice but to start over again. But where and how? Brown County and Nashville, Indiana, offered them a place to live with little means and be self-sufficient in those troubled times. Working together with their son Dick, they each drew upon their unique skills and abilities to create Brown County Pottery in 1932. It would be a Nashville institution for more than 20 years. The story of Brown County Pottery’s inspirational owners doesn’t begin in 1932, however, but in their earlier lives and experiences that shaped them into the hard-working, creative and religious beings that allowed them to persevere and find success in a relatively short period of time in Nashville. Their journey to Brown County was a long one; their stay would last forever. Early decorated teapot. The red color is from a uranium glaze. Collection of Ralph Sperry. The Griffithses before marriage Helen Dapprich Helen was born in Belleville, Ill., near St. Louis, on Nov. 25, 1878,1 the third child of Anna and Emil Dapprich. Her father was an immigrant from Germany and a teacher in Baltimore, Md., when he met and married Anna Hilgartner . They had their first child, Mathilde, there in 1874. Anna’s family, also of German heritage, had established a marble company that would later become L. Hilgartner and Sons, then Hilgartner Marble Company of Baltimore City, and would sell throughout the U.S.2 Emil took a job teaching natural science in Belleville, and son Louis H. was born shortly thereafter in 1876. Emil became a principal, then superintendent of schools, for the City of Belleville and St. Clair County. He was building what would become a national reputation as an educator, speaker, and expert in American flora — collecting, studying and categorizing plants. Two more sons were born in Belleville: Frederick R. in 1880 and Carl Emil in 1883. Anna Dapprich died not long after Carl was born and Mathilde, just 10, became responsible for caring for the younger children.3 The family moved to Milwaukee in 1888, where Emil had been elected head of the German-English Academy, a private school founded in 1851 by German residents dissatisfied with the public school system. He held this position until his death in November 1903.4 Emil remarried in 1892, and he and his wife Emma, a teacher, had two children, Laura in 1894 and Marie in 1896. When Helen left home to attend art school in Chicago in the spring of 1900, her best friend and older sister Mathilde was still living in Milwaukee with the family. Art School for Helen Helen enrolled as a day student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, living in the Hyde Park area. The vast majority of her classmates were women, and attending the school was a very exciting experience for the young women of the day. They were attending classes in the grand neoclassical building erected for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. And in its short existence — just over 20 years — the art school reportedly had the largest enrollment in the country. In addition to painting, drawing, architecture, sculpture and anatomy, the Institute made a commitment to practical art education, transferring or applying fine art skills to other areas, such as newspaper illustration, wood carving, textile design, crockery, glass and jewelry.5 The term “applied arts” was common across the country. Helen and her classmates wore ankle-length skirts, high collars and Gibson-girl hairdos. Horse and buggies shared the roads with streetcars and bicycles and a growing number of automobiles, but elevated trains had begun offering new transportation for some neighborhoods, including Helen’s. Outside the excitement at the Institute, its students were exposed to Chicago’s increasingly vibrant art — and arts and crafts — environment. Small arts and crafts shops were opening in the city, specializing in metal crafts, leather, jewelry, furniture and pottery, and an artist colony at 57th and Stony Island Ave. was in full swing...

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