Justin W. Thomas is a resident of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and a collector, researcher and writer about American pottery production from the seventeenth through the early-twentieth century. He has studied at archaeology departments, museums and private collections across the country, publishing many articles about American potteries in regional and national publications. Thomas was a guest curator at the Custom House Maritime Museum in Newburyport, assembling a temporary exhibit of locally made pottery from the Colonial period through the early-twentieth century. He also helped to write the exhibit catalog, Potters on the Merrimac: A Century of New England Ceramics. He is also the author of The Beverly Pottery: The Wares of Charles A. Lawrence, The Moses B. Paige Company: The Last of the Peabody Potteries, The Dawn of Independence, the Death of an Industry: The Pottery of Charlestown, Massachusetts, South Amesbury's Red Earthenware & Stoneware: The 1791-1820 William Pecker Pottery and A Celebrated Industry: The Historic Wares of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bristol County and Cape Cod.