Date of Award

12-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts in Art History

Department

Art

First Advisor

Stefanie Snider

Second Advisor

James Hutson

Third Advisor

Jonathan Walz

Abstract

Between the First and Second World Wars, the pottery industry of Stoke-on-Trent endured economic depression, material shortages, and social upheaval. Within this volatile context, women ceramicists such as Susie Cooper and Clarice Cliff emerged as central figures in sustaining, and redefining British ceramic production. This thesis examines how these artists transformed adversity into innovation through design, entrepreneurship, and leadership, arguing that their work both stabilized the industry and advanced a distinctly feminist modernism grounded in labor, creativity, and resilience. Drawing on feminist design theory, class and economic analysis, and material culture studies, this research situates Cooper and Cliff within broader systems of gendered and classed labor. It analyzes their production methods, marketing strategies, and aesthetic innovations as responses to wartime austerity and patriarchal industrial hierarchies. Through archival research, case study methodology, and formal analysis of surviving ceramic works, the thesis reveals how these women leveraged decorative arts to assert authorship, cultivate economic independence, and democratize modernist design for a mass audience. Ultimately, Firing Through Adversity reframes women’s contributions to interwar British ceramics as vital acts of cultural endurance and industrial progress. By integrating feminist historiography with economic theory, this study challenges the marginalization of women’s labor in art history and demonstrates how Cooper and Cliff’s practices bridged the divide between art and industry. Their legacies continue to inform contemporary understandings of creative labor, gendered production, and the enduring strength of women’s innovation under constraint.

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