Labor (Other Keyword)
76-100 (123 Records)
Laboring people, especially the enslaved, are often considered to be archaeologically invisible during the first century of settlement in the colonial Chesapeake. In this paper I focus on key aspects of landscapes—fields, forests, and rivers—to consider how a landscape approach can illuminate the daily practice of enslaved Africans and indentured servants in the 17th century. While the focus on productive labor was tobacco cultivation that underpinned the economy, alternate economies dependent...
Landscapes of Labor: Uncovering Montserrat’s Post-Emancipation Lime Industry, 1852-1928 (2024)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Co-Producing Space: Relational Approaches to Agrarian Landscapes, Labor, Commodities, and Communities", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper presents an historical archaeological analysis of Montserrat’s late 19th to early 20th-century citrus lime industry, which emerged in response to the demise of the sugar-based plantation economy on the Caribbean island. Following the networks of lime circulation,...
Learning To Live: Gender And Labor At Indian Boarding Schools (2016)
In 1879, the first federally funded off-reservation boarding school for Native American children was opened at the site of a former army barracks in Pennsylvania. Several additional facilities were soon established throughout the United States. Guided by official policies of assimilation and goals of fundamentally transforming the identities of their pupils, these institutions enrolled thousands of individuals from a multitude of tribal communities, sometimes forcibly. Once at school, students...
Life and Labor at a Small Quicklime Production Operation in Sierra Nevada (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Holmes' Colfax quicklime manufacturing site, located near Colfax in Sierra Nevada, was uncovered as a result of the River Fire in 2021. While the site is certainly important for addressing questions about technology, perhaps the more impressive aspect is the density and diversity of the artifact...
Living in Work Spaces and Working in Living Spaces: Intersections of Labor and Domesticity in the Enslaved Community at Montpelier. (2015)
The lives of the members of the enslaved community at James Madison’s plantation in Virginia, Montpelier, were shaped by the types of work they were expected to do in order to keep the president’s mansion and farm running smoothly. Archaeological excavations at several different early 19th century enslaved households at Montpelier reveal the way their inhabitant’s labors influenced the domestic activities which took place within and around these structures. By comparing and contrasting the...
Machines and the Migrant Under-employed: the production of surplus life and labor in the Anthracite coal fields of Northeast Pennsylvania (2018)
For much of its early history, underground coal mining involved material conditions which encouraged the solidarity and control of its independent skilled workers. Coal operations in the Anthracite region of Northeast Pennsylvania were among the first, however, to mechanize labor processes with steam shovels, waste processing, and other technical means to extract additional surplus profit from their investments. It also served to break the resistance of organized skilled workers. This technical...
Making Communities Work: Organizational Diversity in the Eastern Woodlands of North America (2015)
Stephen Kowalewski has advanced a number of conceptual frameworks for the comparative study of organizational complexity. His multiscalar, cross-cultural approach permits the recognition of broad patterns while incorporating meaningful variation. In a 2013 paper, Steve explores the "work" involved in the formation of large, co-residential communities. He suggests that we might productively focus on the labor process, as community members purposefully redirected people’s time, energy, and...
Marxist Dendroarchaeology: Examining Labor’s Effects on Landscapes and Living Conditions in Cebolla Canyon, New Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The effects of unregulated (laissez-fair) capitalism on working class people and on landscapes are often only beneficial in the short-term. The 1930s were especially difficult times for Americans as people became displaced during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Many were forced to move into new areas in search of work and better living conditions...
Men of Good Timber: An Archaeological Investigation of Labor in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (2015)
Questions of labor and everyday life have been commonplace in archaeology. At Coalwood, a cordwood camp that operated from 1901-1912 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, these issues become especially important since labor experienced a dramatic transformation when the camp shifted from housing a large number of male laborers to being organized by individual households. In this paper I use archaeological evidence to examine the social relations these laborers were engaged in that produced and...
Notes From The Underground: Archaeological Fieldworkers Unite! (2001)
Does making archaeology profitable as a business in a capitalist economy necessitate the exploitations of the profession's workers? Some views on the ethical implications and class dimensions of capitalist archaeology in the context of lived experiences of archaeological fieldworkers organizing for changes in the US and UK.
Oberly Island Phase III (1996)
Photos taken by the editor of The Underground showing the Oberly Island Phase III excavation.
Painted, Printed, Preserved: A Comparative Analysis of Historical Ceramics in a Nineteenth-century Company Town (2025)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Come, Tell Us How You Lived: 50 Years of Research at Catoctin Furnace, Maryland", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Phase III archaeological excavations at the Forgeman’s House and Hoke House sites in the Catoctin Furnace Historic District (Thurmont, Maryland) have yielded significant, contemporaneous ceramics assemblages that provide insight into the lived experiences of early nineteenth century furnace...
Particularal Histories of Diaspora: Historical Archaeology on the Cormandal Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology in South Asia" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Trinidad, Gudeloupe; Suriname, and Jamaica; Maurituius, Reunion, Singapore and the Cape, Fiji, Singapore, malyasia and the Phillipines. All of these are places that share one apparent factor. South Asians, of multiple denominations, genders and castes circulated in the Indian, pacific, and Atlantic oceans as enslaved and indentured...
Pharaonic Power and Architectural Labor Investment at the Karnak Temple Complex, Egypt (2016)
Labor investment studies, based on the notion that the energy of people is quantifiable, give an invaluable and unique insight into the architectural pursuits of past societies. This labor study of ancient Egypt provides a better understanding of authority among Egyptian pharaohs as represented by their legacy of monumental architecture. A site of profound importance to Egyptian society was the Karnak Temple Complex, specifically the precinct of Amun, which was aggrandized by pharaonic...
The Pistol in the Privy: Myths and Contexts of Southern Italian Violence in the Anthracite Coalfields of Northeast Pennsylvania (2016)
The discovery of a revolver in the privy deposits of a home in a coal company town in the anthracite region of Northeast Pennsylvania evokes a long history of Southern Italian racialization as violent and vindictive by dominating groups. These imagined characteristics mobilized the privileged to fear, and thereby act to contain or exclude Southern Italian laborers wherever they lived. At the same time a transnational context reveals complex historical continuities when considered through...
"Poor White" Economic (In)Activity and the Politics of Work in Barbados (2015)
Situated on the fringes of the plantation landscape, the "poor whites" of Barbados occupied unique spaces within local and global capitalist networks during and after the period of slavery. Historically and contemporarily portrayed as being irrelevant within broader economic systems of production, a discourse of marginalization coupled with stereotypes of idleness has severed them from broader Barbadian and global socioeconomics. This paper addresses the power dynamics inherent in identifying,...
A Proposal for Investigating Identity, Class, and Labor in Washington State Worker Settlements (2015)
This paper will propose research to address the formation of ethnic identity and class consciousness as manifested in the material remains of workers and administrators in Washington State working camps. From the mid-1800s to the Great Depression, logging and mining camps and company towns formed a critical part of Washington’s and the Pacific Northwest’s economies. The archaeology of labor-related sites in this region and period has been historically under-researched, and the relationship...
Railroad Camps in the High Sierras (2015)
Railroad construction camps occupied by Chinese laborers have been investigated archaeologically since the 1960s. The upcoming 150 year anniversary of the construction of the first transcontinental railroad has spurred renewed interest in these sites. This paper will discuss what we have learned from previous studies of railroad work camps and how they inform current interpretations, with special emphasis on drawing connections between the archaeological record and theoretical frameworks for...
Remaining on the Estate: Post-Emancipation Tenantry at St. Nicholas Abbey Sugar Plantation, St. Peter, Barbados (2017)
Archaeological investigations at St. Nicholas Abbey sugar plantation, St. Peter, Barbados are providing new insights into the changes that occurred in Barbados during the transition from slavery to freedom. In the late eighteenth century, members of St. Nicholas Abey's enslaved population lived in a village surrounded by sugarcane fields on Crab Hill. Many of the former enslaved workers remained at Crab Hill during the tenatry period that followed emancipation in 1834. Archaeological evidence...
Rights to Land and Labor in Yucatán during Pre-Conquest and Colonial Times (2016)
Land and labor are particularly integral to agrarian economies. The extent to which either is exchanged, sold, inherited, or privatized can shape the dynamics of hierarchy, habitation, and migration as well as exchange. The diverse perspectives on Yucatec possession of land—from assertions of private property to denial of property as a relevant concept—are reviewed for both pre-Conquest and Colonial times. Relevant data include land plot demarcations, historical documentation of land struggles,...
The Shovelbum Economy (2016)
It has long been common knowledge that “most” archaeologists attain gainful employment in Cultural Resource Management (CRM) related fields rather than in academic institutions. By and large there is an accepted idea of what such a career trajectory looks like- there are many archaeologists who have built successful careers in CRM while adding to scientific knowledge and policy, or who have built laudable businesses. The vast majority of those employed in CRM, however, are low-level field and...
Social and Economic Contexts of the Coromandel Coast of South India in the Colonial Period and the Indian Diaspora Formation (2020)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology in the Indian Ocean" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Coromandel coast in South India, which was in the continuous focus of the European maritime powers, had a dynamic role in the political and commercial activities of the Indian Ocean region from the 16th to early 20th centuries. This paper focuses on the socio-economic contexts in areas surrounding Dutch, Danish, English and...
The Social Life of Employment Contracts (WGF - Post PhD Research Grant) (2020)
This resource is an application for the Post PhD Research Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Even as unemployment rates fall, contract and freelance work is on the rise, and job tenures are short - the current median tenure is 4.2 years. The changes in work follow a historical shift in how Americans understand the employment contract. Under contemporary capitalism, people increasingly see themselves in business terms: they are the "CEO of me." In this perspective, hiring resembles a...
Structural racism and archaeological practice - the archaeology of razed African American industrial communities. (2017)
The coal company towns found throughout West Virginia and Central Appalachia were compact, racially diverse communities housing African Americans, white americans, and various european immigrant groups. However, when the industry contracted after World War II, racial firing practices meant that many African American families were forced to leave the area. These newly vacant lots were often repurposed for further industrial use, effectively destroying the material record of many of the African...
Surf and Turf: Understanding Montaukett Economic Strategies through the Whaling Era (2015)
This paper explores the daily practices within two 19th century Native Algonquin households at Indian Fields, a Montaukett village in eastern Long Island, New York. Though geographically distant from the white settlements of East Hampton Town, the Montaukett residents of these households were intimately entangled in local and global economic activities and social networks. Their participation in whaling, seafaring, and agriculture, the dominant economic activities, often led to absences from...