Nancy Sweezy (October 14, 1921 – February 6, 2010) was an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

folklorist Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

, and preservationist. Known initially for her work as a

potter A potter is someone who makes pottery. Potter may also refer to: Places United States *Potter, originally a section on the Alaska Railroad, currently a neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska, US *Potter, Arkansas *Potter, Nebraska *Potters, New Jerse ...

in the 1950s, Sweezy became a scholar of the history and creation of

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

and wrote several authoritative texts and books on U.S. and international folk pottery. She was a major figure in the establishment of markets for folk and traditional

craft A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...

s. Other major accomplishments in her extensive career included the founding of the crafts organization Country Roads, the revival of

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

's historic

Jugtown Pottery Jugtown Pottery was founded in 1921 by Jacques and Juliana Busbee, artists from Raleigh, North Carolina, who in 1917 discovered an orange pie dish and traced it back to Moore County. There, they found a local tradition of utilitarian pottery in o ...

, and the creation of the Refugee Arts Group in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

for immigrant folk artists. Her advocacy work also included developing apprenticeship programs. She also was involved with

Club 47 Club Passim is an American folk music club in the Harvard Square area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was opened by Joyce Kalina (now Chopra) and Paula Kelley in 1958, when it was known as Club 47 (based on its then address, 47 Mount Auburn Stre ...

, a famous performing scene in the

American folk music revival The American folk music revival began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Early folk music performers include Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, Ewan MacColl (UK), Richard Dyer-Bennet, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie ...

. In 2006, she was awarded the Bess Lomax Hawes Award and a

National Heritage Fellowship The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States government's h ...

awarded by the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

, which is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. She was the author of several books including ''Raised in Clay'' and ''Armenian Folk Arts, Culture and Identity''. Her professional archive of 32,992 items collected over the course of her career as a folklorist, folk arts advocate, and non-profit organization administrator is held by the Archive of Folk Culture at the

American Folklife Center The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife". The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the library in 1928 as a rep ...

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

Personal life

Nancy Thompson was born in

Flushing, Queens Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing is a major commercial ...

, New York in 1921. After her parents divorced, she was adopted by another family and was known as Nancy Adams. She attended the

School of the Museum of Fine Arts The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (Museum School, SMFA at Tufts, or SMFA; formerly the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) is a dedicated art school within Tufts University, a private research university in Massa ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, she worked in the research branch of the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...

, the precursor of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. She was married briefly to Bill House. She met her future second husband, the

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

Paul Sweezy Paul Marlor Sweezy (April 10, 1910 – February 27, 2004) was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine ''Monthly Review''. He is best remembered for his contributions to economic theory ...

, in Germany. They divorced in 1960. She died of congestive heart failure in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

on February 6, 2010. She had three children: Samuel, Martha, and Lybess. At the time of her death, she had five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Published works

*"Tradition in Clay: Piedmont Pottery" (1975, journal article) *''Raised in Clay: The Southern Pottery Tradition'' (1984) *''Southeast Asian Folk Art Festival'' (1989) *''Raised in Clay: A Guide to the Potteries and Traditions of Seagrove, North Carolina'' (2000) *''Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity'' (2001) *''The Potter's Eye: Art and Tradition in North Carolina Pottery'' (2005,

North Carolina Museum of Art The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) is an art museum in Raleigh, North Carolina. It opened in 1956 as the first major museum collection in the country to be formed by state legislation and funding. Since the initial 1947 appropriation that ...

exhibition catalog)

References

External links

Craft In America / Nancy Sweezy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sweezy, Nancy 1921 births 2010 deaths American women writers American potters American folklorists American women folklorists American women potters Ceramists from Massachusetts People from Flushing, Queens Writers from Massachusetts National Heritage Fellowship winners 21st-century American women