Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Consuming Appalachia: An Archaeology Of Company Coal Towns, Zada Komara

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Material culture is an understudied aspect of social life in Appalachian Studies, the multi- disciplinary investigation of social life in the Appalachian region. Historically, material culture in the region has been largely studied for its semiotic properties, decoded as a tangible symbol of “a region apart,” lagging behind the rest of America in terms of moral, mental, economic, and social development. Critical material studies from archaeology and other disciplines paint a different picture, however, and construct a region as American as any other. This study utilizes discourse analysis of material rhetoric about Appalachia and archaeological and oral historical data from …

Using Digital Mapping Techniques To Rapidly Document Vulnerable Historical Landscapes In Coastal Louisiana: Holt Cemetery Case Study, Alahna Moore

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis outlines a technique for rapid documentation of historic sites in volatile cultural landscapes. Using Holt Cemetery as an exemplary case study, a workflow was developed incorporating RTK terrain survey, UAS aerial imagery, photogrammetry, GIS, and smartphone data collection in order to create a multifaceted database of the material and spatial conditions, as well as the patterns of use, that exist at the cemetery.

The purpose of this research is to create a framework for improving the speed of data creation and increasing the accessibility of information regarding threatened cultural resources. It is intended that these processes can be …

Ceramic Consumption In A Boston Immigrant Tenement, Andrew J. Webster

Graduate Masters Theses

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Boston’s North End became home to thousands of European immigrants, mostly from Ireland and Italy. The majority of these immigrant families lived in crowded tenement apartments and earned their wages from low-paying jobs such as manual laborers or store clerks. The Ebenezer Clough House at 21 Unity Street was originally built as a single-family colonial home in the early eighteenth century but was later repurposed as a tenement in the nineteenth century. In 2013, the City of Boston Archaeology Program excavated the rear lot of the Clough House, recovering 36,465 artifacts, including …

An Analysis Of Modified Material Culture From Amache: Investigating The Landscape Of Japanese American Internment, Paul Swader

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modified material culture is a class of objects that indicates a transformation of material function. Archaeological research at the Japanese American internment camp in Granada, Colorado, called Amache, has recently uncovered artifacts featuring evidence of modification. Previous studies at internment camps have failed to include a comprehensive analysis of these artifacts; instead focusing on formal materials or aesthetic objects. This thesis investigates an assemblage of modified material culture identified at Amache and a collection from the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. These artifacts provide insight into how internees responded to imprisonment. Through material culture studies, oral histories, and archival research, …

The Revolution Before The Revolution? A Material Culture Approach To Consumerism At George Washington’S Mount Vernon, Va, Eleanor E. Breen

Doctoral Dissertations

Before the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) profoundly impacted the lives of colonial Americans, another revolution of sorts was taking place. This one occurred in the realm of the daily lives of all colonial Americans – free and enslaved, poor and wealthy. What made the 40-year period before the American Revolution unique was that access to consumer goods appears to have opened up for larger segments of the colonial population through a more sophisticated and far-reaching system of distribution for imported items. But just how equal was this access? What can be learned about colonial culture and the maintenance of power …

The Material Culture Of Migrant Life At The U.S./México Border, Consuelo Helen Cano Crow

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Material culture is the aggregate of physical objects or artifacts used by or discarded by a past culture or society. Contemporary unauthorized migration at the U.S./México border has left thousands of pounds of migrant goods in what are referred to by United States Border Patrol as "lay-up sites". Since the late 1990's, undocumented migrants attempting to cross the Sonoran Desert of Arizona have been exposed to a distinctive set of material culture. This rapidly-evolving material culture is specific to the phenomenon of border-crossing, and it reflects and shapes the experience of migrants attempting the crossing. Migrants Stations, also known as …

A Gis Analysis Of The Dynamics Of Power: An Example From 18th-Century Piedmont Virginia, Crystal Lynn Ptacek

Masters Theses

The neighborhood surrounding historic Indian Camp plantation located in Virginia’s eastern piedmont provides an opportunity to examine past identity formation and power dynamics. Using public records and ArcGIS, I researched this historical community to explore networks in which these individuals were involved. Historic land patents and transactions surrounding the Indian Camp property were given a geographical context, and based on resulting maps, research has identified a dynamic neighborhood whose members were deeply entangled in one another’s lives. Many who patented lands around Indian Camp did not do so because of a lack of opportunity in their home counties or due …

Entertaining, Dining, And Novel Drinking: Rural Gentility And The Reverend John Hancock's Household, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1700-1750, Katie Lynn Kosack

Graduate Masters Theses

The rise of refined behavior paralleled the expansion of colonial markets and consumer choice. Objects related to the refined consumption of food and drink took center stage in the transformation of colonial entertaining. The availability of new foodstuffs and the associated equipage transformed sociability and the meaning of eating and drinking. These changes coupled with the high level of social mobility in eighteenth century Massachusetts, meant that performances with novel objects became dynamic symbols of one's social status. Utilizing Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, this work explores how Rev. John Hancock, minister of Lexington, Massachusetts, expressed his social status through …