UMD Theses and Dissertations
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Item Respectable Holidays: The Archaeology of Capitalism and Identities at the Crosbyside Hotel (c. 1870-1902) and Wiawaka Holiday House (mid-1910s-1929), Lake George, New York(2017) Springate, Megan; Shackel, Paul A; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The nineteenth century industrialization of America, the development of the middle class, anxiety about social belonging, and industrial capitalism are deeply intertwined. As America industrialized, people moved from rural communities, where people were known and support systems ran deep, to the cities to find work. Managers, who acted as proxies for owners, became so prevalent that they formed a new class. Middle class identity, rooted in a particular performance of respectability, whiteness, gender, distinguished its members from untrustworthy capitalist business owners and from the rough lives of the working classes. Middle class values became synonymous with American values. This essentialization of middle class respectability is a manifestation of capitalist ideology wielded to create new markets under consumer capitalism. Archaeological excavations at Wiawaka on Lake George, New York provided a material window on these processes. From 1857 to 1902, the Crosbyside Hotel served as a middle-class, mixed gender resort on the grounds of what is now Wiawaka. Vacationers performed middle class respectability and belonging while enjoying the benefits of nature. In 1903, Wiawaka moved in to the former Crosbyside, a single-gender, mixed-class moral reform vacation house for respectable working women and their middle-class benefactors. These women also performed middle class respectability and belonging while enjoying the benefits of nature. In both cases, people worked to make these vacations possible. This dissertation is one of a very few archaeological investigations of late nineteenth century hotels, and the first to examine women’s holiday houses. Using Third Space and performativity, artifacts from the Crosbyside and from the mid-1910s to 1929 associated with Wiawaka were used to explore interrelated facets of identity including gender, class, race, and respectability. Differences between how people negotiated identity in the era of industrial capitalism (Crosbyside) and consumer capitalism (Wiawaka) were identified, as were the ways that identities were shaped and confined by capitalism through powerful ideas of respectability. Also identified were material examples of the labor of leisure – of those who did the work that made vacations possible. Artifacts recovered make clear that it is, indeed, possible to see the labor of leisure in the archaeological record.Item The Economy and the American Presidency in a Polarized Era: Changes to Income and Unemployment by Class, Race, and Gender(2017) Mugglestone, Konrad Peter; Morris, Irwin L; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)For decades, political scientists have debated, with little consensus, whether Democratic and Republican presidents have contrasting macroeconomic records. While some scholars have argued that presidents can (and do) target economic benefits to constituents, existing research on party differences in macroeconomic politics has assumed that the two major parties have constituencies distinguished by class and that each party managed the macroeconomy to benefit these class-based constituencies. However, political and economic conditions have changed over the past thirty years. Scholars have been concerned about the effects of increasing political polarization, which has caused unusually contentious and slow-paced policymaking. High debt levels have made major budgetary changes more difficult, and monetary policy has been checked by the zero lower bound. In light of these new political and economic challenges, this dissertation utilizes a unique dataset to examine presidential administrations from 1970 to 2014. Using this data, this project seeks to answer several key questions: Do modern presidents of opposing parties have contrasting macroeconomic records? In light of changing political and economic conditions, have these differences grown or decreased from the differences observed in the past? Finally, do modern presidents reflect the identity politics of the polarized, modern era by focusing not only on class constituencies, but on race and gender constituencies as well? Some of the findings are predictable, but others are surprising. In terms of the macroeconomy, Democratic presidents demonstrate economic records superior to their Republican counterparts. However, the party of the president rarely has any meaningful impact on income growth for specific class, race, and gender groups. Even so, the party of the president does have a consistently meaningful effect on unemployment rates. On average, Democratic presidents have greater impacts than Republicans on the overall unemployment rate and the unemployment rates of some of their constituent groups: the working class, and racial minorities. Moreover, evidence suggests that other political factors sometimes matter – both divided government and an election year variable capturing the Political Business Cycle have statistical relevance, especially in unemployment models. Finally, this study finds little statistical evidence that polarization is having a meaningful impact on presidential economic policymaking.Item Double "Double Consciousness": An Archaeology of African American Class and Identity in Annapolis, Maryland, 1850 to 1930(2015) Deeley, Kathryn Hubsch; Leone, Mark P; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the intersections of race and class within African American communities of the 19th and early 20th centuries in order to expand our understanding of the diversity within this group. By examining materials recovered from archaeological sites in Annapolis, Maryland, this dissertation uses choices in material culture to demonstrate that there were at least two classes present within the African American community in Annapolis between 1850 and 1930. These choices also show how different classes within this community applied the strategies advocated by prominent African American scholars, including Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, and Nannie Helen Burroughs, as ways to negotiate the racism they encountered in daily lives. One class, the "inclusionist" class, within the community embraced the idea of presenting themselves as industrious, moral, clean, and prosperous to their White neighbors, a strategy promoted by scholars such as Booker T. Washington and Nannie Helen Burroughs. However, another group within the community, the "autonomist" class, wanted to maintain a distinct African American identity that reflected the independent worth of their community with an emphasis on a uniquely African American aesthetic, as scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois suggested. The implementation of different strategies for racial uplift in daily life is both indicative of the presence of multiple classes and an indication that these different classes negotiated racism in different ways. This dissertation explores the strategies of inclusion and exclusion African American scholars advocated; how African Americans in Annapolis, Maryland implemented these strategies in daily life during the 19th and early 20th centuries; and how debates over implementing these strategies are still occurring today.Item Fords of My Dreams: Stories(2014) Dorland Perry, Dawn Chryselle; Casey, Maud; Creative Writing; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Fords of My Dreams: Stories is a literary manuscript-in-progress featuring girls and women rising up from rural poverty. These linked stories bear witness to coming-of-age as a ritual marked by extreme rejection of others and even violence; to the adulthoods shaped by invisible pasts of need and neglect; and to the survivor's guilt that plagues those who sacrificed or abandoned others whose futures weighed less in order to rise. In the tradition of Dorothy Allison's Trash, these stories complicate the assumption that arriving at a higher economic class always outgains the emotional cost. With Fords of My Dreams, the author seeks to open a new set of questions around the American dream of class ascendance.Item Contested Populism: The Cross-pressured White Working Class in American Politics(2010) McTague, John Michael; Morris, Irwin L; Government and Politics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While there has been a fair amount of research on class cleavages in the United States, the extant literature is a muddle of competing explanations of the political behavior of the white working class. Some argue that they are trending more Democratic on economic grounds in an era of growing inequality, while others point to growing Republican support based on social, cultural, and moral issues. I argue that the white working class is cross-pressured in a political environment that makes both the economic and cultural dimensions of class salient. Class shapes important economic outcomes, such as income, but it also socializes an authoritarian worldview. Although the Republican Party has made strong inroads with this constituency on the basis of their relatively higher levels of authoritarianism, the Democratic Party remains a competitive alternative based on its economic policies.Item "The Sauce is Better Than the Fish": The Use of Food to Signify Class in the Comedies of Carlo Goldoni 1737-1762.(2006-04-26) Coyle, Margaret Anne; Nathans, Heather S; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the plays of Venetian Commedia del'Arte reformer-cum-playwright Carlo Goldoni, and documents how he manipulates consumption and material culture using fashionable food and dining styles to satirize class structures in eighteenth century Italy. Goldoni's works exist in what I call the "consuming public" of eighteenth century Venice, documenting the theatrical, literary, and artistic production of the city as well as the trend towards Frenchified social production and foods in the stylish eating of the period. The construction of Venetian society in the middle of the eighteenth century was a specific and legally ordered cultural body, expressed through various extra-theatrical activities available during the period, such as gambling, carnival, and public entertainments. The theatrical conventions of the Venetian eighteenth century also explored nuances of class decorum, especially as they related to audience behavior and performance reception. This decorum extended to the eating styles for the wealthy developed in France during the late seventeenth century and spread to the remainder of Europe in the eighteenth century. Goldoni 's early plays from 1737 through 1752 are riffs on the traditional Commedia dell'Arte performances prevalent in the period. He used food in these early pieces to illustrate the traditional class and regional affiliations of the Commedia characters. Plays such as The Artful Widow, The Coffee House, and The Gentleman of Good Taste experimented with the use of historical foods styles that illustrate social placement and hint at further character development. In his later plays from 1753-1762, Goldoni developed his satirical use of food in order to illuminate current social problems and bourgeois status issues. Plays such as Mirandolina, The Superior Residence, and the three plays of The Country Trilogy offer a social commentary about the role of consumption in the formation of class structure during the period. My work offers a new look at the theatre and literary output of the eighteenth century, and particularly how writers used material culture as a way of illustrating social changes.