African American Contributions to American Design
Member Price: $20 / session
Non-Member Price: $25 / session
| 1 | Sat., February 7, 2026 at 1:00 P.M. EST | Brandt Zipp, “The Life and Legacy of Thomas W. Commeraw.” Brandt Zipp is the author of Commeraw’s Stoneware: The Life and Work of the First African-American Pottery Owner and a founding partner of Crocker Farm, Inc., a research-focused auction house specializing in period American stoneware and redware. Based in Maryland, Crocker Farm consistently endeavors to push the field of American ceramics scholarship forward, using the objects it handles to help fill in gaps in the established history of the American utilitarian pottery industry. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Brandt has spent over twenty years researching Thomas Commeraw and his fellow New York City stoneware manufacturers. |  |
| 2 | Sat., February 28, 2026 at 1:00 P.M. EST | Dr. Jason R. Young, “Hear Me Now: Art, History and the Politics of Redress.” Jason R. Young is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan specializing in the history of art, religion, and folk culture. He recently served as co-Curator of Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina, a touring exhibition that opened at the Metropolitan Museum in 2022 before traveling to the MFA Boston, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the High Museum. His first book Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry Region of Georgia and South Carolina in the Era of Slavery, was an exploration into the religious and ritual practices that linked West-Central Africa with with the Lowcountry region of Georgia and South Carolina. Young has published articles in The Journal of African American History, The Journal of Africana Religions, and The Journal of Southern Religion, among others. His latest book project, The Mask of Memory: White Racial Fantasy after the Civil War will be published in 2026 by the University of North Carolina Press. | |
Member Price: $20 / session
Non-Member Price: $25/ session
Registration is required. Once registered and paid, you will receive an email prior to each session with a link to join.
Do you have a scheduling conflict for the live session? You can still enjoy the program. Register and we’ll send you the recording! All paid attendees will be emailed a private link to the session recording when it is available, typically 6-7 days after the live program.
Missed us? You can also register retroactively. If you register for a session that has passed, you’ll receive access to the recording when it is ready.
Haven’t tried a session yet? Each session is planned as a “stand-alone” lecture, so you can take them all or attend the topics that interest you most.
MORE INFORMATION
Craftsman Farms, the former home of noted designer Gustav Stickley, is owned by the Township of Parsippany-Troy Hills and is operated by The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, Inc., (“SMCF”) (formerly known as The Craftsman Farms Foundation, Inc.). SMCF is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization incorporated in the State of New Jersey. Restoration of the National Historic Landmark, Craftsman Farms, is made possible, in part, by a Save America’s Treasures Grant administered by the National Parks Service, Department of the Interior, and by support from the Morris County Historic Preservation Trust, The New Jersey Historic Trust, and individual donors. SMCF received an operating support grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the Department of State and a grant from the New Jersey Arts & Culture Recovery Fund of the Princeton Area Community Foundation. Educational programs are funded, in part, by grants from the Arts & Crafts Research Fund.
