Anthropology
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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 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.