The Leisure Class versus the Tourists: The Hidden Struggle in the Collecting of Pueblo Pottery at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

摘要

Attention to class is proposed as a heretofore unexplored part of the explanation for the development of the “native arts” market in North America. A focus on the collecting of Pueblo pottery around the turn of the twentieth century frames the discussion. Class differences account for variability in shapes, designs and sizes of ceramic items produced by Puebloan potters for sale and determined the kinds of ceramic items that were sought. Distinctions in class played themselves out in the expression of conflicts over taste. The branding of some pottery as “good” and some as “bad” masked the reinforcing of boundaries between the elite and lower classes. Pueblo potters' labour and the products of that labour were influenced and conditioned by these different kinds of class habitus. Discussion of particular collectors and their motivations as well as the quantities, prices, and descriptors of items demonstrates these points.