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American Apotheosis: Ceramics And The Production Of National Identity In Post-Revolutionary New York City, Diane F. George

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study begins in the present with questions about the genealogy of American national identities in a time when they are fraught, exclusionary, and often dangerous. It examines ceramic tablewares and teawares from the post-Revolutionary War period in New York City, seeking to uncover the identities that were formed by the middle- and upper-class merchants, businessmen, and their families who may have used the wares. The theoretical framework is the concept of identity and the belief that people use material culture in social arenas in active and complex ways to produce, reproduce, announce, challenge, and change who they or the …