American Material Culture Commons^™

The Mockery Of Things: Material Culture And Domestic Ideology In The Detective Fiction Of Anna Katharine Green, Claire Meldrum

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The Mockery of Things: Material Culture and Domestic Ideology in the Detective Fiction of Anna Katharine Green examines how a popular genre author like Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) uses objects to articulate middle-class identity and social constructions in late-nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America. During that era, the home as both a physical space and an ideological signifier was a central tenet in American middle-class identity. Focusing on domestically situated objects – clothing, household furnishings and domestic architecture – this dissertation considers how such items, which have tended to be read in support of domestic identity, instead function within the context …

Always Already Imprisoned: The Panoptic Power Of Capitalism In American Literature, 1900-1940, Andrew Spencer

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

ALWAYS ALREADY IMPRISONED: THE PANOPTIC POWER OF CAPITALISM IN AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1900-1940

By Andrew Blair Spencer, Ph.D.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2019

Director: Dr. Richard Fine, Professor, Department of English

By applying the theories of control that Michel Foucault outlines in Discipline and Punish to the capitalist system, I argue that capitalism functions in much the same was as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon in that it perpetually imprisons individuals who live under its purview. As I see it, capitalism works on …

Finding The Singing Spruce: Craft Labor, Global Forests, And Musical Instrument Makers In Appalachia, Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth

Theses and Dissertations--Anthropology

Musical instrument makers in the state of West Virginia in the United States pursue “singing,” lively instruments that capture ideals of musical tone and “re-enchant” their work and lives through relationships with craft materials and the forest landscape. Suitable tonewoods that grow in the region, such as red spruce (Picea rubens), intersect with makers’ desires to craft instruments in the style of famed makers such as the C.F. Martin Company and the Gibson Company as well as provide instruments imbued with a sense of place. While the demand for and symbolic import of instruments made with local wood …

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 …

The Bioarchaeology Of The Tugalo Site (9st1): Diet, Disease, And Health Of The Past, Nompumelelo Beryl Hlophe

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Tugalo site is a prehistoric and early historic Native American site located in northeast Georgia along the upper Savannah River basin, near the junction of Toccoa Creek and the Tugalo River. According to archaeological materials analyzed from the site it was occupied from ca. A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Anderson et al. 1995). Although archaeological investigations of the site revealed basic characteristics of its chronology and architecture, very little analysis and reporting of the skeletal remains from Tugalo has been completed. By analyzing data collected by Williamson (1998) concerning the age and sex of the burials, the presence or absence …

The Evolution Of Sunset Magazine's Cooking Department: The Accommodation Of Men's And Women's Cooking In The 1930s, Jennifer Hoolhorst Pagano

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The Western regional magazine Sunset has been published under a series of owners and publishers since 1898. In 1928, Sunset was purchased by Lawrence Lane, a Midwestern magazine executive who transformed it from a failing turn-of-the-century, general interest publication about the West, into a successful magazine about living in the West for the Western middle-class. Sunset had always been a magazine for men and women, and one that appealed to both male and female intellectuals at the time Lane purchased it. Lane and his editors attempted to interject more rigid middle-class ideals into a magazine that had espoused ideas that …

Sets And Sensibilities: The Excavation Of Ideology In Upstate New York, Christopher P. Barton, Kyle Somerville

Northeast Historical Archaeology

A growing literature on the archaeology of farmsteads and rural domestic sites has examined commodity consumption as the means by which rural families created and maintained social networks and identities. During the nineteenth century, rural areas were increasingly influenced by the practices and values of the urban middle classes, although not every farmstead would, or could, participate in the same way. This paper examines a matching teacup and saucer recovered from the Spring House, a former commercial farmstead and hotel located southeastern Monroe County, Western New York State. The tea set is decorated with transfer print depictions of Faith, Hope, …

Promoting Domestic Manufactures: Philadelphia Queensware In Alexandria, Virginia, Barbara H. Magid

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Philadelphia earthenware from the Columbian Pottery was advertised in the early 19^th century by several Alexandria, Virginia merchants. These wares, known as Philadelphia Queensware, can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record, but examples of yellow-glazed chamber pots manufactured by the Columbian Pottery have now been identified in the collections of the Alexandria Archaeology Museum.

“A Bright Pattern Of Domestic Virtue And Economy”: Philadelphia Queensware At The Smith-Maskell Site (28ca124), Camden, New Jersey, Thomas J. Kutys, George D. Cress, Rebecca L. White, Ingrid A. Wuebber

Northeast Historical Archaeology

Excavations at the Smith-Maskell Site (28CA124) in the Spring of 2011 by URS Corporation revealed a number of early 19th-century features behind what was once 318 Cooper Street in Camden, New Jersey. These features produced significant quantities of Federal period tea and tablewares, including a number of Philadelphia Queensware vessels. During this period Camden was beginning its transition from a scattering of sparsely populated villages to a city of summer residences and country retreats for Philadelphia’s well-to-do middle class. The likely owners of the Philadelphia Queensware found at the Smith-Maskell Site were among this prosperous middle class, and thus the …

The Rise And Fall Of American Queensware 1807-1822, Rebecca L. White, Meta F. Janowitz, George D. Cress, Thomas J. Kutys, Samuel A. Pickard

Northeast Historical Archaeology

.

This article examines the history of several manufacturers of American queensware in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and beyond. Our research reveals that efforts to produce queensware were more extensive and widespread than previously thought. This survey expanded as we discovered references to contemporary queensware potteries in other parts of the United States during the first two decades of the 19th century. In all, 14 queensware-manufacturing ventures are identified and described from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, what is now West Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Much of this research is drawn from period newspaper notices, advertisements, and surviving personal correspondence. The period …

December 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Mega-Chanukah Party; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book group; Anouncements; Community Notices

The Sea Ranch: Unforeseen Failures And Statewide Successes Of An Ecologically Conscious Coastal Community, Robert Daley

Senior Theses

The term “residential development” or “planned community” brings to mind images of a stereotypical suburbia. The planned community of The Sea Ranch, along the Sonoma County coast in Northern California is a direct challenge to the suburban ideal. Construction of the nearly 1500 homes began in the late 1960s and continues to present day. All of the homes must meet specific design requirements including being ecologically sound and they must fit within the landscape. The strict architectural elements is what provides the distinct look of the community. The construction of a housing development along a ten-mile strip of untouched and …

Heritage, Tradition, And Craft In Quiltmaking (Fa 1131), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 1131. Collection contains Interviews, photographs, and informant data sheets relating to Sandy Staebell's project with quiltmakers in Allen County and Monroe County, Kentucky and Macon County, Tennessee for the 2017-2018 Osby Lee Hire and Lillian K. Garrison Hire Memorial Lecture Series.

November 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shab-bates; From the Rabbi; President's Message, Maine State Museum Tour; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

October 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Shabbat in the Woods; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Book Group; Announcements; Community Notices

September 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Erev Rosh Hashanah Sacred Music Concert; Simchat Torah; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Community Notices

August 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Kiddush Levana; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

July 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Maine-ly Jewish Storytelling Festival; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Community Notices

June 2018, Temple Shalom Synagogue Center

Newsletter Archive

Contents: Eléonore Weill Visits; From the Rabbi; President's Message; Announcements; Book Group; Bat Mitvahs; Person of the Year; Community Notices

“After-Ozymandias”: The Colonization Of Symbols And The American Monument, H. R. Membreno-Canales

Theses and Dissertations

After-Ozymandias examines the visual rhetoric of American patriotism through its many symbols, including flags and monuments. My thesis project consists of photographs of empty plinths, objects, products and archival materials. Countless relics remain today memorializing leaders and empires that inevitably declined, from antiquity to modern times. Looking back at distant history feels like a luxury, though: the question for our time in America is whether we have the strength of mind as a society to scrutinize our history, warts and all.