In 1903 Mary Chase Perry (Stratton) and Horace Caulkins founded Pewabic Pottery in a stable near downtown Detroit, and four years later the present building was constructed as a pottery works designed in the style of an English inn. Part of the early twentieth-century Arts and Crafts design movement, which shunned machine-made products and championed craftsmanship, Pewabic became known nationwide for handmade ceramic wares distinguished by their quality and brilliant, iridescent glazes. Its architectural tiles were used in numerous public and private buildings, including Detroit’s Guardian Building and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Mary Chase Perry was born in 1867 in Hancock, Michigan, moved to Detroit by age ten, and studied china painting and sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Academy from 1888 to 1890. In 1903 she co-founded the pottery in Detroit and named it Pewabic after the Upper Peninsula copper mine near Hancock. She later married architect William B. Stratton, who designed the Pewabic Pottery building. During her prolific career, Perry developed new iridescent pottery glazes, taught and wrote widely about ceramics, received honorary degrees from the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, and died in 1961 at age ninety-four. Pewabic Pottery celebrated its centennial in 2003 and is a National Historic Landmark.