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Poughkeepsie Potters and the Plague George H. Lukacs Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2001 128 pages, approx. 200 b&w illustrations, $19.99 (pa). Reviewed by Scott H. Suter Poughkeepsie Potters and the Plague fits well into Arcadia's series of books published under the Images of America heading. It is packed with photographs that illustrate the author's points, and serves as a fine record of the pottery of Poughkeepsie, New York at the end of the eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth centuries. This book, however, goes beyond many of the titles in the publishing house's series by telling a verbal story as well as a visual one. Lukacs, an antiques dealer from the Poughkeepsie area, explores the connection between that city's pottery production and the yellow fever epidemics that periodically struck New York City in the 1790s and early nineteenth century. This small book offers an interesting material culture studies approach to the topic of disease and its effects during this period of American history. Visually, the book will be useful to all those interested in American stoneware pottery, particularly those who seek information on the businesses themselves. Lukacs has clearly spent time digging through old newspapers and archival collections, and he draws on the bits and pieces he found there to form interesting hypotheses regarding the industry and specific pieces. Most often these seem directly to the point; however, there are occasions when his imagination may carry him too far. For instance, his suggestion that a geometrical figure drawn around the stamp on a J. Remmey pot indicates the potter's cheerless mood during the 1798 yellow fever epidemic seems far fetched at best (p. 32). Still, the copious illustrations of pottery are a vast visual resource for collectors and researchers of stoneware throughout the region. The book is completed by an appendix listing Poughkeepsie potters of stoneware and earthenware from 1797-1903. Poughkeepsie Potters and the Plague is a volume that should be found on all serious pottery researchers' book shelf, primarily for the numerous images of the region's pottery. Occasionally, curiously unrelated photos of unknown residents of Poughkeepsie are intermixed with the quality black and white photos of pottery, but these do not detract from the visual quality of the cohesion of the book. The story of the growth of the industry in the city also provides a nice addition to the understanding of how and why potteries often emerged when clay and other necessary resources were not found locally. All in all, this is a useful as well as entertaining look at the pottery business in one Hudson River valley town.