North America (Geographic Keyword)
3,426-3,450 (3,468 Records)
Popular images of the maritime industry in places like San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Cove often focus on men — whether working on docks or ships, or on land at iron works and carpenter’s shops. Less visible in the historical record of these spaces are the women and children also living, and often working, along the waterfront. Historical research on the neighborhood that bordered Yerba Buena Cove in the late-19th-century suggests that most residences were occupied by families, rather than by...
"Women Smoking Leather": Identifying Women and Their Ethnicity at Fort Selkirk. (2015)
Fort Selkirk served as a small subarctic fur trade post for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in central Yukon from 1848-1852. The company’s priority was the trade of European goods in exchange for furs trapped and hunted by Northern Tutchone and other Indigenous groups in the region. A review of Fort Selkirk journal records indicates the fort employed and housed a pluralistic population which included British, Indigenous and Metis men who worked as clerks, labourers and meat hunters. Mostly...
Wood Work: Excavating the Wilderness Economy of New York’s Adirondack Mountains (2016)
At the end of the 19th century, New York's legislature responded to the clarion call of conservationists concerned for the state's diminishing timber resources and threatened watershed by creating the Adirondack Forest Preserve, which kept millions of acres of public land in northern New York "forever wild." At the same time, the Adirondack logging industry witnessed tremendous growth on account of expanded railroad networks and paper industry innovations that opened up new areas of private land...
Wooden Histories: Narratives of Rural Abandonment and Disappearing Landmarks (2018)
The post 1820 wooden barns of the American mid-west are both physical structures, made of large beams, pegs and stone foundations, and silent witnesses to the dynamic interface between local, national and global social and economic changes. Drawing upon research in rural Indiania, this presentation explores the interface of regional historical research, personal interviews, and visual recording, to explore the process and potential contributions of documentary filmmaking in narrating local...
Wooden History of "The Highwayman" - Wreckage and Discovery of the Lumber Schooner Oliver J. Olson (1900 -1911) (2016)
Careened to starboard prow remains were uncovered by the landslide of a dune during the hurricanes Mary and Norbert at Cabo Falso, Lower California in August of 2014. Main deposit encompasses floor timbers, ribs, beams, planking, iron fasteners, a capstan, a dead eye, a cleat, a hatchway and steam donkey pinions. Machinery inscriptions, wood taxonomy, architectonical characteristics, site location and documentary sources research, drove to identify the wreck as the four-masted schooner Oliver J...
Worker’s Housing and Class Struggle in the Northern Forest (2017)
Worker’s housing is the material embodiment of the contradictions and class struggle between capital and labor. These contradictions stem from capital’s goal of securing cheap and reliable labor while workers strive for higher wages and gaining a measure of control and autonomy over their own lives. Archaeologists tend to overly simplify these complex social relations by uncritically adopting common ideological descriptions such as paternalism or overusing dualisms like dominance and resistance....
Working in Small Areas: The Archaeology Of An Urban Backyard in St. Charles, Missouri (2018)
Working in small, urban backyards is challenging due to often numerous ground disturbing activities. Often lurking between these disturbances, archaeological deposits can offer interesting and surprising glimpses of past activity. One backyard along Main Street in St. Charles, Missouri offers just such a glimpse that includes family life and dumping activity interpreted through 20th-Century children's toys and an unusually dense concentration of 19h-Century ceramics,
Working Off the Farm: Extracurricular Labor Expenditures and Farm Households (2018)
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries farmers in the town of Hector, Schuyler County, New York, sought out additional employment oppurtunies at an increased rate. These occupations included endeavors that ranged from shopkeepers and schoolteachers to stenographers and doctors. Furthermore, these additional strains on household labor impacted agricultural production across the town of Hector. This included differential product choices and land improvements. Historical and archaeological...
Working on the Edge, Dealing with the Core: Emic and Etic perspectives on Island Heritage (2016)
Heritage is a relative concept. Perceptions of the value and importance of heritage, both tangible and intangible, is fluid, changing and contextually dependent. Stakeholders have various views on definitions of the past, the cultural and historical relevance of people places and objects, and the extent to which this should be shared when creating multivocal histories. Research on Inishark and Inishbofin, Co. Galway, Ireland, two islands five miles into the Atlantic Ocean, explain the...
Working Side-By-Side at the Grassroots Level: the Role of the Non-Profit and Avocationalist (2016)
Often, archaeological endeavors are sparked by one lone man or woman in the community driven by an avocational interest in their cultural heritage. This paper discusses how fostering relationships between multiple non-profits (archaeological/historical societies) and encouraging avocational involvement can revitalize the discipline of archaeology on a local to national level. The collaboration of multiple non-profits in archaeological endeavors has become a common practice in recent years as...
Working Title: Saenger Pottery Works: Preliminary Report, Unlocking a Town’s History through Their Pottery (2017)
This investigation of historical ceramics is conducted on a collection that dates from 1886 to 1915. Saenger Pottery Works was in operation from c.a.1885 through c.a. 1915. The size, form, and function variability of the ceramics inform about production techniques used and what forms are preferred over others. The issues in provenience and provenance are discussed because the pottery, while attributable to the site, do not have records of surface collection. Background research is a joint effort...
Working To Stay Together In "Foresaken Out Of The Way Places": Examining Anishinaabe Logging Camps And Lumbering Communities As Sites Of Social Refuge In The Industrial Frontier Of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. (2018)
Recent historical analyses of American Indians and wage labor have sought to challenge the "traditional" versus "modernist" dichotomy that has long shaped narratives of Anishinaabe labor history in the Upper Great Lakes. This paper discusses how collaborative research, involving the archaeological investigation of logging camps and mill sites in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, has aided in challenging the assumptions underlying this narrative form. More specifically, this paper explores the...
Working Toward an Activist Landscape Archaeology (2013)
Landscape archaeologies in the United States and Europe encompass diverse goals, scales and scopes allowing many perspectives to emerge from the archaeological study of related sites. This paper explores ways in which US-based scholars could draw upon approaches and theories from across the Atlantic to move toward an activist landscape archaeology that engages descendant communities, the public, and land managers through a focus on how people have interacted with and within a broad regional...
The World in his Pocket: the diverse coins used in the California Gold Rush (2017)
During the California Gold Rush, hopeful Argonauts from all over the world descended on California, bringing whatever coinage they had with them. Merchants of the time were adept at accommodating the new arrivals. Whereas the silver reales of Spanish America had long been a mainstay of the economy on the East Coast of America, now many other forms of coinage made their appearance. Silver and gold were the accepted forms of currency because with the runaway inflation copper coins were of...
World War II Shipping in the Gulf of Mexico and the Impact of the German U-boat Threat: the Archaeological Evidence (2016)
An estimated 56 commercial vessels were sunk by German U-boats in the Gulf of Mexico during targeted campaigns conducted between 1941 and 1943. In the years since, an estimated 14 of these wrecks have been located and identified with a high degree of confidence. A number of these sites have undergone varying levels of archaeological analysis, although very few have been scientifically excavated, resulting in little related material culture. This paper will review the archaeological evidence...
Worthy of a Thousand Words?: A Comparison of Images of Slavery in the US and Great Britain (2013)
In a previous paper I posited that imagery could be used as a resource for the archaeological study of slavery in Great Britain, since the smaller population of African slaves made it difficult to separate evidence of slavery from servitude. This paper will test the theories developed in the previous paper by comparing images from Great Britain with analogous samples from the US. Using traditional historical archaeological methods to study the people and places from which the US images were...
The Wreck Of The Galleon San Agustin: A Case Study In Economics, Exploration, And European Development Of The Pacific Rim. (2017)
For over two centuries galleons carried treasure and commodities between Asia and Mexico, crossing the Pacific along established routes that took advantage of currents and winds. The voyage was difficult and the hardships endured were extreme. At least four are known to have been lost along the Pacific coast between Washington and Baja California, although none have been recovered archaeologically. In California, just north of the San Francisco Bay, the galleon San Agustin was wrecked at Pt....
The Wreck of the Quedagh Merchant: Identification and Affiliation of Captain Kidd’s Lost Ship (2016)
The shipwreck of the Quedagh Merchant is an archaeological site that brings to life one of the most romanticized activities in modern popular culture: piracy. Little specific evidence of pirates and their actions exists in the archaeological record and, oftentimes, it is difficult to distinguish the identification and function of certain artifacts and features from being piratical or simply commonplace. In fact, finding a site and making the connection to piracy can often be a difficult...
The Wreck of the Slave Ship Peter Mowell: History, Archaeology, & Genealogy (2018)
In 1860, the New Orleans-based slaving schooner Peter Mowell wrecked along the shore of Lynyard Cay in The Bahamas, while attempting to carry 400 captive African people to Cuba. Bahamian wreckers rescued the survivors and took them to Nassau: the crew was jailed and released, and the Africans were made indentured servants. After completing their indentures, the shipwrecked Africans blended into Bahamian society but maintained distinctive traditions from their homelands. In 2012, a Bahamian/US...
The Wreck of the Warwick: History and final analysis of an early 17th-century Virginia Company ship. (2015)
The Warwick which carried the new governor, settlers, their possession, tools, and provisions across the Atlantic to the nascent Bermuda colony in 1619 sank during a hurricane while at anchorage in Castle Harbour. Over the course of four field seasons, a team of archaeologists, students, and volunteers excavated and recorded the Warwick’s hull. The remains of the Warwick are one of the largest and most articulated fragments of an early 17th century English ship. Notwithstanding the historical...
Wrecked! An Interactive Exhibition on a Revolutionary War Shipwreck in St. Augustine, Florida (2016)
The upcoming exhibition of the Storm Wreck, a Revolutionary War shipwreck in St. Augustine, Florida, is two-fold. As with traditional archaeology exhibits, it will share how historical documents and artifacts from the shipwreck tell the story of British Loyalists who, after evacuating Charleston, South Carolina and leaving behind all they knew and taking with them only what they treasured and needed most, arrived in St. Augustine only to run aground and have many of their precious few items...
Writing the Archaeology of America's Modern Cities (2013)
Over the last few decades, archaeologists have contributed a great deal to our understanding of contemporary American cities. We have just finished writing a book about the work these colleagues have done, based on material they have provided from all over the country, mostly from the grey literature. Their archaeological investigations are informative at two scales of analysis. Some studies, on the macro scale, have encompassed the whole city, and reveal patterns of urban development, ...
Writing, Sewing, Eating: Faunal Analysis of a post-Emancipation School for Girls in Montserrat, West Indies (2018)
Potato Hill is located on the western side of Montserrat, which is a small volcanic island in the West Indies. Initial surveys conducted at this site during the 2010-2014 field seasons identified three historic structures. They were subsequently excavated in 2015-2016, and ranged from the 17th century through the 19th century. Of these, the 19th-century structure Feature 16 became of particular interest due to the artifacts related to writing (slate, pencils), sewing (thimbles, buttons, and...
WWI Concrete Shipwrecks in Texas (2018)
During World War I, raw material supply shortages in the United States caused many manufacturing innovations to be made, including the use of concrete for the hulls of merchant ships. Concrete ships were manufactured by both the US government and private companies, but few were ready in time to contribute to the war effort. These ships were unique in their design, sailing capabilities, and working lifespan. There are four recorded archeological examples of concrete oil tankers in Texas, wrecked...
WWII-Related Caves, Community Archaeology and Public Service Announcements: A Community Approach to Raising Awareness and Protecting Caves (2016)
A recent ABPP-funded project explored community consensus building for the protection of WWII-related caves on the island of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The project utilized radio and television public service announcements for the purpose of sharing a local message of protection and preservation of caves with the island community. This paper outlines the process of community engagement and involvement, recording privately owned WWII cave sites, developing a...