PLAY PODCASTS
The Life and Labor of Enslaved Potter Dave Drake, with Ethan Lasser

The Life and Labor of Enslaved Potter Dave Drake, with Ethan Lasser

Curious Objects

May 27, 202038m 58s

Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (redirect.zencastr.com) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.

Show Notes

In 1834 a law was passed in South Carolina that prohibited slaves from reading or writing. The punishment for transgressors? Fifty lashes. That same year, Dave Drake, an enslaved potter at work in Edgefield County inscribed his first poem on a large stoneware jug he'd made. In this episode of the podcast, Ethan Lasser, chair of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, tells Dave’s story and that of an 1857 storage jar that bears the epigrammatic lines: "I made this Jar for Cash-/ though its called lucre trash/ Dave.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices