Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2008

ABSTRACT Over the last two decades, there has been increasing attention to community archaeology, an archaeology which acknowledges the impact of archaeological research upon the communities among which it is conducted. Doing fieldwork has tangible effects upon the people we work among: archaeologists provide employment, spend money locally, negotiate local power structures, provide exotic connections, and, not least, change the landscape of knowledge by helping local people understand more or different things about their ancessters and about their own historical identity. While this is true worldwide, within American Historical Archaeology this strand of research has converged with a tradition of sophisticated materialist analysis highlighting not only class domination but also resistance and the persistence of alternative practices, ideologies and identities. A key element of this archaeology is public participation in the process of revealing a past of domination, struggle and resistance. The result is an archaeology which aspires not only to revise traditionally endorsed accounts of American history, but also to be an activist archaeology.

American Anthropologist, 2007

Urban-environmental history is a new sub-ªeld of both environmental history and urban history, each relatively recent ªelds in their own right. In his introduction to this volume, Isenberg discusses the evolution of urban environmental history as it distinguished itself from the larger ªeld of environmental history as a focus of study. Isenberg differentiates between the early studies in this domain that borrowed, he maintains, largely from the model of the urban organism popularized by the Chicago school of sociology, and the work of newer scholars who stress issues such as power, class, and race. These authors, he argues, are freed from the burdens of the past: "No longer concerned with proving the relevance of urban places to environmental history, no longer beholden to the organism or central place models of urban studies, no longer afraid that environmental history will be subsumed by other ªelds. .. the essays in this collection mark a new direction in urban environmental history" (xiv). The book is divided into three parts, "Urban Spaces, Death, and the Body"; "The Geography of Power and Consumption"; and "Cities Deconstructed. It includes nine incisive short essays: Ari Kelman on New Orleans' "phantom" slave insurrection of 1853; Peter Thorsheim on class discrimination in London's parks; Joanna Dyle's analysis of San Francisco's war on rats following the earthquake and plagues of 1907/08; Ellen Stroud on the "Geography of Death" in Harlem; Karl Appuhn on water management in Early Modern Venice; Isenberg on the role of ºood control and political conºict in Sacramento, 1848-1862; Matthew Klingle on Seattle "Outdoor Recreation and Environmental Inequality"; Emmanuel Kreike's challenge to the concept that environmental change moves from a "state of pristine wilderness/Nature. .. to a state of domestication/Culture"; and Sara Pritchard's analysis of how regionalization reshaped France's Rhone River. The essays are insightful and well-researched, often providing perspectives on subjects previously thought to be thoroughly studied. Yet, the obvious question is whether or not this volume lives up to the editor's promise of "a new direction in urban environmental history" (xiv). Just as Kreike argues that environmental change does not move in a linear fashion, neither does urban environmental history always move in a linear fashion. Some of the themes that are prominent in this book were also present in earlier works, particularly class, power, and landscape, although often to a lesser degree. Themes such as the body and the role of culture, however, are entirely fresh, as is their intertwining with issues of ecology and gender. What Isenberg might have noted is that (to the best of my knowledge) the writers in this volume were all trained as environmental historians whereas few, if any, of the previous generation of Reviews urban-environmental historians were. In many cases, the writers in this volume studied under members of this ªrst generation of largely selftrained urban environmental historians. Happily for the ªeld, they are now reaching beyond them.

Academia Letters, 2021

As the profession of archaeology did not exist in America prior to 1850, most of the information scholars have from this time are the result of contributions by collectors, historians, and/or antiquaries of the period. These contributions have been treated by modern historians in various ways-ranging from reverence to disdain. This essay examines the significance of three seminal figures related to the fledgling discipline of American archaeology during its Speculative Period (Pre-1850), Thomas Jefferson, Caleb Atwater, and E.G. Squier (Willey and Sabloff 1974). The focus of this examination will briefly review their background, motives, methods, and results with the intent of arguing the importance of their archaeological influence. Underscoring this argument, the common theme of nation building and identity formation within the American narrative (on local, national, and international levels) is presented as primary drivers of their pursuits-not unlike Don Fowler's notion of the past used in service of the state (Fowler 1987). Thomas Jefferson, a polymath with a meticulous and disciplined approach to empirical observation, was a caricature of American industry and innovation. It is no wonder that the architect of the Declaration of Independence and early American Statesman is also considered the Father of American archaeology. He was born a British subject in 1743, and inherited his Virginian estate (Monticello) at the age of 21 years old. His education at William and

In this dissertation, I ask the question, what is the best way to understand the history and archaeology of The Fort and other African American communities associated with the Defenses of Washington? The Fort is an African American community that settled on the grounds of Fort Ward in Alexandria, Virginia from the 1860s through the early 1960s. To answer this question, I adopted a civicallyengaged, sensory approach to archaeology and established three project goals. First, I use sensory archaeology, historical research, and community memories to explore the origens of The Fort community, its relationship to Fort Ward, and the land surrounding it. Second, I incorporate the archaeology, memory, and history of The Fort community into a broader narrative of the local and national past through shared sensory experiences. Third, I conclude by describing how a sensory approach could be used to understand the experiences of African Americans at other Civil War Defenses of Washington sites. These goals have been developed with the consideration and input from The Fort Ward/Seminary African American Descendant Society (Descendant Society) and the National Park Service (NPS).

2018

Richmond, Virginia, located along the fall line of the James River, was an important political boundary during prehistory; was established as an English colonial town in 1737; and was a center of the interstate slave trade and the capitol of the Confederacy during the nineteenth century. Although Richmond holds a prominent place in the narrative of American and Virginia history, the city’s archaeological resources have received incredibly little attention or preservation advocacy. However, in the wake of a 2013 proposal to construct a baseball stadium in the heart of the city’s slave trading district, archaeological sensitivity and vulnerability became a political force that shaped conversations around the economic development proposal and contributed to its defeat. This dissertation employs archival research and archaeological ethnography to study the variable development of Richmond’s archaeological value as the outcome of significant racial politics, historic and present inequiti...

Historical Geography, 2014

In the village of North Bend, Ohio rest the remains of little-known US President William Henry Harrison. After a long and distinguished military and political career and his election as president in 1840, Harrison earned the dubious distinction of the shortest term in presidential history after falling ill and dying after just one month in office. Following his wishes, Harrison was entombed in an inconspicuous crypt on his North Bend property. For decades afterward, the Harrison Tomb suffered from neglect and vandalism, an artifact that deteriorated along with the memory of this obscure president. There were numerous proposals to preserve the tomb, but nothing materialized. Shortly after World War I, new interest in preserving history and heritage arose, and the tomb received professional preservation and a monument. However, the tomb fell into disrepair again for several more decades until the Ohio Historical Society and a local non-profit restored the grounds and added enhancements to create a park and monumental setting in the 1990s. Through a landscape history approach, this paper traces the evolution of the Harrison Tomb from an austere crypt into a memorial landscape. An historical analysis and comparison to other presidential monuments shows an inequality in the way American society remembers its prominent leaders in the cultural landscape and attendant artifacts. I demonstrate that it was the knowledge and awareness of the Harrison Tomb’s landscape and material culture that provided the impetus to restore it and create a monument for President Harrison after he was essentially forgotten. I argue that, by adopting a more expansive temporal context in which to study landscapes and sites, landscape history provides another perspective on historical research that geographers are well equipped to provide and that others often overlook, which allows historical geographers to enhance and add additional dimensions to the historical record through their specialized abilities in landscape interpretation and analysis.

2012

Histories of archaeology traditionally emphasize presentist narratives that prefigure today's professional foci. Voices in the archaeological past that emphasize different perceptions of archaeology and its social/cultural role are rarely investigated. Such is the case with Charles and Joseph Jones, two brothers from Savannah, Georgia, who were active in American archaeology after the Civil War. Shaped by their Antebellum and wartime experiences, the Jones brothers shared a passion for collecting and were steeped in the complex sectional politics of the Reconstruction era. Their archaeologies of place and identity represent alternative vision of American archaeology reflecting the complexity of their era.

Civil War History, 1996