The Intersection of Identity, Labor, and Racism in Washington State Company Towns

Summary

This paper will propose research to address the intersection of identity, racism/racialization, and labor as manifested in the material and documentary remains of workers and administrators in Washington State company towns. From the mid-1800s to the Great Depression, logging and mining towns formed a critical part of state and regional economies. The archaeology of labor-related sites in this state and period has been historically under-researched, and the relationship between labor, racism, class consciousness, and the material culture of workers in industrial settings is a topic of interest to historical archaeology. Furthermore, as settlements whose existence is owed largely to market needs, they serve as an avenue for understanding how workers and other local inhabitants responded to the expansion of capitalism. Thus, investigating late 19th to early 20th century labor in Washington’s peripheral settlements will improve our understanding of local history, the social context of work, and the formation and maintenance of identity in the context of capitalism. Here I will review prior work on labor in Washington State, and then propose future avenues of research that will draw on multiple lines of data (geographic, remote sensing, archaeological, documentary) to address its social context and materiality in the region.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage