1880-1950 (Temporal Keyword)
1-4 (4 Records)
Capitalism has always relied on the exploitation of temporary, underpaid laborers. This fact of Capital has never been more clear than during the Great Depression. When faced with joblessness and the loss of their homes, countless persons took to the rails in search of work. These persons found short-term homes in camps near labor centers across the country. Drawing on archaeological, archival, and ethnographic data on a transient laborer camp near Delta, Pennsylvania, we explore the potential...
Excavating an Ephemeral Assemblage: An Archaeology of American Hoboes in the Gilded Age (2016)
Hobos and other transient laborers were integral to the development of industrial capital in the United States. They traversed the country filling essential temporary positions at the behest of capital interests. Yet, they frequently utilized alternative market practices in their labor arrangements, relying partially on direct trade over monetary payment. They likewise maintained intricate social networks, the material remains of which lay extant in past hobo campsites. Despite fulfilling a...
Living Within and Without the Borders of Others: An Historic Period First Nations Hunting/Trapping Site in Northern Alberta (2015)
Although the Cold Lake First Nation signed Treaty Six in 1876, granting them a small treatied territory of some 19,000 hectares, many families continued their winter forays in search of game and furs into traditional territories well off the Reserve for many decades. Recent archaeological research, ahead of a proposed pipeline development, has focussed on one such wintering site, located within what is now the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range. Evidence of family groups reusing this base camp has been...
(What’s) Left of the Commodity: Archaeology and the Creative Resuscitation of Spent Goods (2018)
Hobo jungles and other transient laborer and homelessness related sites present a sustained material critique of Capitalism. These kinds of sites provide insight into the creative strategies people employ to circumvent commodity markets when capital is not available. Whether residual evidence of an intentional statement against an oppressive system, or of a means to persist in the most desperate of situations, the assemblages left behind by people who reside on the fringes of...