Carr China Jim Mitchell

On July 5, 2011, the West Virginia State Museum's chief curator James R. Mitchell will present "Decorating Carr China" at the monthly Tuesday evening lecture in the Archives and History Library. Carr China Company operated in Grafton for four decades from the 1910s until 1953. The pottery operation made all types of dishware, serving various facilities, including restaurants, hotels, hospitals, and state parks. Among the designs produced by the company are Grafton, Rho-Dendra, Willow, and Glo-Tan. Some of the specialty items that Carr China produced include the 1936 Tygart River Reservoir Dam dedication plate and the 1952 Philippi Covered Bridge centennial celebration plate.

Jim Mitchell has been a professional decorative arts and technological history curator for 50 years. In addition to the West Virginia State Museum, he has worked for state museums in Wisconsin, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as The Bennington (Vt.) Museum and the defunct Carborundum Museum of Ceramics in Niagara Falls, New York. He has also been a museum director twice. In his spare time, Mitchell is a woodworker and an amateur musician, singing and playing bass instruments.

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Education

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• carr
• china
• west virginia
• jim mitchell