Ceramic Choices West of the Mississippi: Considering Factors of Supply and Ethnicity

During the early and middle 19th century, the Trans-Mississippi West experienced a period of significant economic and social transformation. Economic expansion during this period was characterized by town building; commerce over the Santa Fe, Oregon, and other trails; railroad construction; mining; and the development of a significant river commerce. At the same time, Native Americans from the Great Lakes region and Southeast were resettled in portions of this area, in particular eastern Kansas and Oklahoma. Individual consumers in the early 19th-century West selected ceramics to use in their households, but data from this area have not figured into theory-building on ceramic and consumer choice. A preliminary survey of data, primarily from the TransMississippi West, suggests that ceramic choice in this area was affected by at least two significant factors. First, supply-side decisions appear to have limited the range of ceramics coming into the area, and thereby limited the possible choices available to consumers. Second, ceramic choices made by Native American immigrants to the West appear to differ from those made by Euroamericans here and elsewhere during this period, but may not be explicable by reference to capitalistic models of choice. The potential importance of those two factors toward explaining consumer choice in the West is considerable, and is particularly important in tempering models of consumer behavior that assume equal market access and the primacy of a capitalistic frame of reference.