Applying Concepts from Historical Archaeology to New England\u27s Nineteenth-Century Cookbooks

This article describes a study of New England cookbooks as a data source for historical archaeologists. The database for this research consisted of single-authored, first-edition cookbooks written by New England women between 1800 and 1900, together with a small set of community cookbooks and newspaper advertisements. The study was based on the belief that recipes are equivalent to artifact assemblages and can be analyzed using the archaeological methods of seriation, presence/absence, and chaîne opératoire. The goal was to see whether change through time could be traced within a region, and why change occurred; whether it was an archetypal shift in food practice, modifications made by only a few families, change that revolved around elite consumption patterns, or transformations related to gender and other social forces unrelated to market price. The role of technology, as seen through the adoption of kitchen stoves and new modes of cooking, was a concern. Seriation highlights times and places in which ideas change and new ones emerge in novel forms. Its employment revealed changes among the nuts, fruits, and vegetables used in desserts. Analysis based on the chaîne opératoire approach indicated that the number and sequence of steps in food preparation changed as women became familiar with stove cooking. The influence of domestic reformers and physicians became evident; but it was also clear that many of the changes within New England foodways percolated throughout the region from the bottom up after appearing among lower socioeconomic levels of society

Final Report for National Endowment for the Humanities Grant No. RO-20600-83: Salvaging the Calvert House Site

The work funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities during the period February - July 1983 enabled emergency archaeology at the Calvert Site to be carried close to completion. The research contributed significantly to an understanding of the development of Annapolis in the colonial era. In fact, work at Calvert has proved critical to the humanistic objectives of the Annapolis Archaeology Project: understanding and assessing the impact of social and economic rank on the material remains of a colonial southern, urban center. The research was also influential in establishing an archaeologically, historically, and architecturally based preservation program. The work at Calvert helped awaken the Annapolis community to the potential that archaeological research possesses and increased the community's awareness of the many changes that the city has undergone through time. Research at Calvert was also successful in attracting private and public donations for further archaeological work in the city and, in fact, as one result of the emergency grant, Historic Annapolis has been given $27,500 in City funds to be used in preparing a city-wide plan for the preservation of below-ground historic resources. City ordinances with the same objective are also being developed. The developer, Historic Inns of Annapolis, plans construction at four additional sites in the city during the next 12-24 months and has incorporated plans to find and to preserve fragile archaeological resources into these four projects as well. Finally, the educational impact of the Calvert archaeology project on the public was immense and general public interest in the work and its findings was widespread

Archaeologically Defining the Earlier Garden Landscapes at Morven: Preliminary Results

The first phase of archaeology at Morven was designed to test the potential for further study of the early garden landscape at a ca. 1758 house in Princeton, New jersey. The research included intensive botanical analysis using a variety of archaeobotanical techniques integrated within a broader ethnobotanical framework. A study was also made of the garden\u27s topography using map analysis combined with subsurface testing. Information on garden features related to the design of earlier garden surfaces suggests the ways in which the Stockton family manipulated their estate to convey a social image of the family to the local Princeton community. This, in turn, provides information that, when combined with collateral ethnographic information obtained from documents, suggests the symbolic content of the garden

Archaeologically Defining the Earlier Garden Landscapes at Morven: Preliminary Results

The first phase of archaeology at Morven was designed to test the potential for further study of the early garden landscape at a ca. 1758 house in Princeton, New Jersey. The research included intensive botanical analysis using a variety of archaeobotanical framework. A study was also made of the garden\u27s topography using map analysis combined with subsurface testing. Information on garden features related to the design of earlier garden surfaces suggests the ways in which the Stockton family manipulated their estate to convey a social image of the family to the local Princeton community. This, in turn, provides information that, when combined with collateral ethnographic information obtained from documents, suggests the symbolic content of the garden

Pratos e mais pratos: louças domésticas, divisões culturais e limites sociais no Rio de Janeiro, século XIX

Reply to ten comments on a paper published in the last issue of this journal. The discussion follows along six main lines: History museums, identity, ideology and the category of nation; the need of material collections and their modalities: patrimonial, operational, virtual; theater versus laboratory; visitors and their ambiguities; Public History: the museum and the academy.Resposta aos comentários de dez especialistas que contribuíram no debate de texto publicado no último número desta revista. A discussão orientou-se segundo seis tópicos principais: museus históricos, identidade, ideologia e a categoria de nação; a necessidade de acervos materiais e suas modalidades: acervo patrimonial, operacional, virtual; teatro versus laboratório; o público e suas ambigüidades; História Pública: o museu e a Academia

Calvert Interim Report 1: Preliminary Analysis of Features from Period 1 Associated with Posthole Building(s) at Calvert Site, Annapolis, Maryland

This is the first of a series of interim reports being prepared on the Calvert Site. As interim reports, their objects are twofold: (1) To provide detailed information, in preliminary form, on particular aspects of the analysis of material from the Calvert Site to staff members at Historic Annapolis, Inc. (including those who may not be familiar with the methods, theories, and findings of historical archaeology.) (2) To summarize what is known to date and hence to serve as planning documents for and, in some cases, preliminary manuscripts of chapters that will be included in the final report on the Calvert Site. This report summarizes what is known to date about the late 17th/early 18th century posthole features that were found. These are among the earliest evidence of construction that we have been able to identify in the archaeological record for the site and within the town as a whole; they may predate the c. 1690-1720 brick house, the first story front and side walls plus remnants of the back (east) wall of which still remain intact in the fabric of the present standing structure (ie., the Governor Calvert House Hotel). There are no extant remains of any posthole building(s) contained within the Governor Calvert House Hotel as these were dismantled in the 18th century. This posthole building(s) may have been built as early as 1680-90 or as late as c. 1710 as there is archaeological evidence of use of the site beginning c. 1680, but documentary research to date has not revealed the chain of ownership in the 17th century

Preliminary Report on the Bordley-Randall Site in Annapolis, Maryland

In the spring of 1988, Historic Annapolis, Inc., was given the opportunity to begin a limited testing program of the archaeological resources at 9 Randall Court, formerly the home of Mrs. van Weems and now the residence of Philip van Weems Dod. Of particular concern was evidence of earlier garden and landscape features and the presence of early 18th-century deposits. Funds were provided for 2 days of testing

Draft Report on Testing at 18AP34: Patrick Creagh Site

Two days of minimal field testing (an a budget of $500) were carried out at the Patrick Creagh Site located at Prince George Street, Annapolis, Maryland on June 28-29, 1983 (see figures 1 and 2). Funding was provided by Historic Annapolis, Inc. under a grant from the City of Annapolis. Four test units were excavated to establish whether soil layers dating to the 18th century occupation of the house existed. The results of testing in each of these units is presented below together with a brief discussion of the site's eighteenth century occupants and its neighborhood

Alternative Ways of Measuring Artifacts Used in the Preliminary Analysis of the Calvert Site (18AP28)

Paper presented at the Mid-Atlantic Archaeology Meetings, April 1987