Washington (Other Keyword)
1-9 (9 Records)
New and non-traditional techniques such as the geographic information system (GIS), geophysical survey, and geoarchaeology show great promise for investigating changing landscapes and urban deposition patterns. The Washington, D.C. Historic Preservation Office has begun implementing these non-invasive techniques as part of most Phase I investigations, especially in highly-developed areas. They are a cost-effective, efficient, and fast ways to identify areas of fill, buried stream channels,...
Appearance Is Everything: Mary Washington And Her Specialized Ceramics Of Gentility (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Specialized Ceramic Vessels, From Oyster Jars to Ornaments" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Mary Washington, mother to George, was widowed young. Her decision not to remarry, an unusual choice for women of her time, meant she faced an economic and social uphill battle raising five children to be successful adults and members of the Virginia gentry class. Consequently it was important that she cultivate a...
The Archaeology And Forgeries Department: A Novel Interdepartmental Approach For Obtaining Historically Accurate Reproductions At George Washington’s Boyhood Home (2020)
This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The newly reconstructed Washington Family Home at Ferry Farm is unique in that visitors are encouraged to immerse themselves in eighteenth century life by sitting on the chairs, lying on the beds, going through the drawers of desks, and handling the tea and tablewares. Additionally, the entire structure and everything in it is informed by Washington’s historical and archaeological...
Balls, Cocks, and Coquettes: The Dissonance of Washington’s Youth (2018)
Powerful messages concerning ideal gender roles are significant, yet latent features of presidential biographies. Most contemporary authors suggest that Washington succeeded despite the efforts of his mother, Mary Ball Washington. Biographers tend to be most offended by Mother Washington when she exercised agency. Archaeological investigations at Washington’s childhood home in Stafford County, Virginia underscore the dissonance between the material culture of his youth and popular narratives...
Exhibitions of Gentility at George Washington’s Boyhood Home (2013)
The examination of personal accessories recovered from George Washington’s boyhood home (1738-1774) reveals the family’s efforts to portray their respectability and gentry class identity despite the economic and social anxieties they experienced after the death of their family patriarch. Dedicated analysis of small finds artifacts demonstrate the family’s commitment to genteel behavior and display. Clothing accessories such as powdered wigs and sleeve buttons proclaimed their class, and, on...
The Foundation of Meaning (2013)
Sometime in the 1870s, a small set of subterranean stones became an object of importance and pilgrimage. Promoters, travel writers, and visitors claimed that the stones were the original foundations of George Washington’s boyhood home near Fredericksburg Virginia. The site was already well known as the site of Parson Weems’s famous Cherry Tree parable, but as the landscape recovered from the Civil War, residents look for other ways to have a less troubled American past. Washington provided the...
Monte Cristo’s Gold: A Case Study of a Hard Rock Gold Mining Town in Washington’s Cascade Range at the Turn of the 20th Century. (2017)
In the 1890s, the town of Monte Cristo, located deep within Washington’s Cascade Range, promised to be one of the state’s most profitable mining towns. Gold was first discovered in Glacier Basin in 1889, and Monte Cristo, assisted by a railroad that ran directly from the town to the city of Everett, developed nearby to support local mining endeavors. Unfortunately, the mines were not as profitable as originally hoped. By 1905, mining had mostly seized, and the town was eventually abandoned. In...
"Old Fortunes, New Fortunes, Lost Fortunes" Utilizing a Forgotten Assemblage to Help Reconstruct Betty Washington and Fielding Lewis’s Dining Room (and So Much More) (2015)
Decades worth of artifacts excavated from Kenmore, the house of Betty Washington Lewis (George’s sister) and her husband Fielding Lewis, have recently been reanalyzed by George Washington Foundation archaeologists with the intent of shedding light upon what equipage would have graced the Lewis’s dining room table. Re-examination of this collection proved both informative and surprising, yielding clues as to what life was like for this family during and immediately following the Revolution, as...
"Washington Began To Make The Highways Around Philadelphia So Unsafe With Parties From His Fortified Camp:" The Strategic Importance Of The Valley Forge Winter Encampment—A Historical, Archaeological, And Landscape Perspective (2016)
The now infamous site of the Valley Forge winter encampment consists of the location where roughly 12,000 soldiers of the Continental Army camped during the winter of 1777-1778. Valley Forge is located just twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia. This position enabled the Continental Army to be close enough to the city to maintain pressure on the occupying British forces as well as being far enough away in a high-ground position just outside the city to avoid the immediate threat of attack....