Plate

This blue and white transfer-printed earthenware plate made by an unknown Staffordshire firm features an inscription honoring De Witt Clinton (1769–1828), late Governor of the State of New York, for his assistance with the historic Erie Canal project. The border design features four scrolled reserves with canal boats and views of the Canal. On April 17, 1816, before Clinton was elected governor, the New York legislature approved plans for a canal connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River to bring trade from Lake Erie and western New York to the Hudson River Valley and the city of New York. The plan was approved largely because of Clinton's efforts as a canal commissioner in formulating the plan. Clinton also oversaw construction of the Canal after being elected governor in 1817 and re-elected for several terms thereafter. After nearly eight years of construction the Canal was completed in 1825. It follows the course of the Mohawk River eastward until the Mohawk flows into the Hudson at Cohoes, New York, just north of Troy. In an era when new modes of transportation and conduits of trade were important benchmarks in American commercial and technological progress that revolutionized daily life, the Canal was an immensely popular subject for transfer-printed export wares destined for the United States market. A view of the Erie Canal at Little Falls, New York appears, for example, on a plate, 14.102.247, by Job & John Jackson (1831–1835). Many other sites pictured on transfer-printed export wares, such as Albany, New York on a plate, 16.83.5, by Enoch Wood & Sons (1818–1846), owed their commercial success in the nineteenth century to the opening of the Erie Canal. Refer to the Dictionary for a definition of the term “transfer printing."