Nancy E. Owen. Rookwood and the Industry of Art: Women, Culture, and Commerce, 1880–1913. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2001. 355 pp.; color plates, b/w figures, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $24.95. Rookwood enthusiasts might compare reading Rookwood and the Industry of Art to a train ride. Those readers already interested in American art pottery, china painting, international expositions, and decorative arts at the turn of the twentieth century will enjoy the trip immensely. Written by Nancy E. Owen, a lecturer in American art and women’s studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, the well-designed and generously illustrated text (many familiar images) focuses on running the Rookwood pottery business. At departure, the author announces the journey’s route: “This book explores the ways in which the production, marketing, and consumption of Rookwood pottery reflect and inflect the commercial and cultural milieu in the United States from 1880 to 1913” (p. 2). Owen arrives at her destination after concluding that Rookwood was so successful at marketing itself as art that it failed commercially in the years before World War I. There are some interesting meanderings and important stops during the trip. Chapter 1 introduces the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the American aesthetic movement, American ceramics at the Centennial, and the American art pottery movement. Chapter 2 addresses women in middle-class American culture during the late nineteenth century and their role in the arts, in Cincinnati (where the Rookwood industry originated), and at Rookwood. In chapters 3 and 4 readers learn valuable information about the pottery’s labor history, the ideal aesthetic of the arts and crafts workshop, and the impracticality of that model for Rookwood, although its pottery operators used romance to ensconce all of its output as art. In her discussion of Rookwood and its participation in international expositions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in chapter 5, Owen addresses the question posed to institutions and individuals attending these exhibits: “What’s so American about Rookwood?” Chapter 6 tackles the difficult task of placing a name, face, and class on the pottery’s consumers, and the epilogue lists the changes in technology and world order that helped end Rookwood’s elite position in the national market. Readers meet some fascinating individuals along the way. Photographs of seated women—each with a paintbrush in hand—gazing at a decorated Rookwood pot are interpreted rightly as portraits “reminiscent of a long tradition of representations of male painters in their studios” (p. 94). Former pottery manager William Watts Taylor, who was given the Rookwood business by founder Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, reveals himself in a complaint to colleague Charles Fergus Binns, “The Pottery has been written about to a rather tiresome degree from the ‘woman’s standpoint’ and . . . you can imagine how this has been rather written to death. . . . Of course you know Rookwood so well that you appreciate how its characteristic development has been the work of the other sex to at least a controlling extent” (p. 16). Owen also introduces the thorny personality of decorator Laura A. Fry and recounts the lawsuit she brought against the pottery for alleged patent infringement of a Fry-developed atomizer used for decorating ceramics. (Rookwood won the suit.) Another decorator, Patti Conant, expresses a laborer’s point of view as she reminisces about her career at the pottery: “The prestige of being a Rookwood decorator and the ‘love of art for art’s sake’ was supposed to compensate for the very low pay, which is just unbelievable today”(p. 78). All the while, readers learn about people deeply engaged in the art and business of the pottery industry. There are some snags in the line. Owen states that her book is based on her dissertation. Such a document usually includes a review of the literature, as well as the author’s contribution to the overall scholarship of the topic. Rookwood and the Industry of Art would have done well to include such a review since there has been so much written on the pottery hailed as a “dominating force in the pottery market.” Authors of dissertations also typically state what is original about their inquiry. While not addressed in this publication, I venture to say that Owen’s book-length focus on Rookwood attempts to expand a strictly art history perspective to include a cultural history context, including commerce and consumerism. Readers understand that Owen knows the Rookwood literature, but the author still needs to provide references for many statements, which she assumes are familiar to her readers. In some cases, quotations and paraphrases are not attributed at all, while others are attributed incorrectly. As a result, the reader is advised to use the book’s endnotes with caution. The author provides plenty of directions in the main body of the text: “This chapter [6] imagines the intended audience for various Rookwood wares by examining the ways in which Rookwood management attempted to influence consumption through advertising, mail-order sales, and selection of retail agencies” (p. 80). And again on page 81: “The second part of this chapter argues that the consumption of Rookwood can be understood in terms of the mechanisms by which demand shaped supply.” But such signposts may lead to unwelcome intrusions into the text. For Owen, repetition becomes an occupational hazard for choosing a topic that defies strict chronological chapter organization: the subject involves a relatively brief era with overlapping theories of aestheticism, arts and crafts, and art nouveau. Such difficulties might have been addressed by more careful editing; perhaps a second edition could incorporate improvements. Ultimately, readers have the sense that everyone in the book is acting true to form. There are no surprises. Rookwood is a vehicle to view the tension between culture and commerce, and it is a good and familiar one. Owen does place the pottery in its cultural milieu, but it may be helpful to examine other art industries and other potteries. Further informative queries might include: What were other ceramic manufacturers doing as points of comparison? Did Rookwood mirror other art industries born around the time of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition? Why was Rookwood operated as a business under Taylor despite its loud claims of art for art’s sake? Does the culture versus commerce polarity bring ceramic historians closer to understanding the complexities of gender, business, art, consumerism, and American culture? If so, how? In summary, Owen is a new conductor whose enthusiasm for her topic is apparent on every page. She tracks the Rookwood story, places it within a business context, and searches for feeder lines, or story sidelights. Some, such as chapter 4’s discussion on American collectors, are intriguing; others, such as the discussion of the novella The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (p. 17), are mere digressions. Yet there is enough inherent interest in the Rookwood story for readers to join this one in saying, “All aboard!” Cynthia Brandimarte Southwest Texas State University and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department San Marcos and Austin, Texas