CONSTRUCTING THE PAST: An examination of manipulated historical landscapes at historic sites.
Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2017
The manipulation of the historical landscape is a large part of the development and interpretation of historical sites. The degree to which this is a benefit to the site depends on various factors. Often it is essential to enrich the visiting publics experience and impression of the site, while elsewhere the highlighting of a specific time period is at the expense of other others. This session examines the process and results of these decisions.
Other Keywords
Civil War •
African American •
Historic Site •
Interpretation •
Plantation •
Urban Archaeology •
Colonial Revival •
Textile Mills •
Urban Renewal •
Cultural Landscape
Temporal Keywords
20th Century •
Mid-19th to Mid-20th Century •
19th-21st centuries •
18th through 20th Centuries •
1765 and 1950s •
19th Century, Historical
Geographic Keywords
North America •
Coahuila (State / Territory) •
New Mexico (State / Territory) •
Oklahoma (State / Territory) •
Arizona (State / Territory) •
Texas (State / Territory) •
Sonora (State / Territory) •
United States of America (Country) •
Chihuahua (State / Territory) •
Nuevo Leon (State / Territory)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)
- Documents (8)
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Beyond Battlefields: Incorporating Social Contexts into Military Sites (2017)
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Although it has been more than a century since the US Civil War was fought, battles regarding interpretation and the public memory of the conflict continue to rage. Hundreds of sites along the eastern seaboard are consecrated to this period, with many preservationists and other historical organizations dedicated to sterile interpretations of these battlefields. These interpretations fail to capture social contexts of the site, as well as the development of the landscape since the Civil War. The...
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The Church on the Hill: Inter-related Narratives and Conflicting Priorities for the Emory Church Property in Washington, D.C. (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Fort Stevens was one of the only fortifications comprising the Civil War Defenses of Washington that saw combat, during Jubal Early’s raid on July 11-12, 1864. Prior to the Civil War, the land was sold by free African American woman Elizabeth Butler to the trustees of Emory Chapel in 1855 for construction of a church; when Fort Massachusetts was initially constructed in 1861, the church stood within it, but later was razed by the Union army when the fort was expanded and renamed Fort Stevens in...
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"Our Silence Will Be More Powerful Than Words Could Be": The Haymarket Martyrs Monument and Commemorative Authority (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Forest Home Cemetery is the final resting place for a large cross-section of Chicago’s population. Not far from its entrance lies the cemetery’s most visited section: the burials of seven of the eight men tried and convicted for their involvement in the 1886 Haymarket Square bombing. Dominated by a monument to the Haymarket "martyrs" and an adjoining "Radical Row"—internments of over 60 labor activists and anarchists including Emma Goldman—the site is held in trust by the Illinois Labor History...
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Pilgrim’s Progress: Neighborhood redevelopment and the historical landscape of "America’s Hometown" (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
By the end of the nineteenth century Plymouth Massachusetts had become a typical New England Town with an active industrial base and a vibrant waterfront. With the decline of the textile industry Plymouth re branded itself by highlighting its unique history. This was achieved not only by highlighting the Pilgrim story but also by the removal of many aspects of its 19th century landscape. This paper addresses the changes made in the mid-twentieth century through neighborhood redevelopment.
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(Re)Telling the History of Cleveland Urban Neighborhoods (2017)
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Like many Rust Belt, Midwest cities, Cleveland has seen a large demographic shift over the last century in its urban neighborhoods. In many cases, the same street or city block has been shaped by the unique sociocultural practices and material arrangements specific to a range of different racial and ethnic groups. In this paper we focus on the 20th century history of two different downtown neighborhoods, Hough and Cedar-Central. We examine how the representations of urban space specific to...
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Three Lives of Belair Plantation: Colonial Governor’s Retreat to Gentleman Farmer’s Racing Stable (2017)
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Belair began in the 1740s as the plantation of Samuel Ogle, one of Maryland’s proprietary governors and a prominent member of one of the colony’s most influential extended families. Field archaeology and archival research identified two significant alterations to the mansion and curtilage: removal of surrounding dependencies and construction of a telescoping addition in the early 19th-century, and removal of the addition and construction of flanking hyphens and wings in the early 20th century,...
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"We have done very little investigation there; there is a great deal yet to do": The changing historic landscape of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
For several decades, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA) has used the benchmark year of 1799 for landscape interpretation within the estate’s historic core. Efforts to restore the grounds and dependencies have been a paramount concern, but elements such as a colonial revival garden (1930s), relic house (1928), and porters’ lodges (c. 1818) survive. Along with these features, different generations of historic plantings of trees and shrubberies and associated gravel pathways exist from the...
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Whitehall's Restoration: A Tribute To Horatio Sharpe, A Reflection Of Charles Scarlett (2017)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
Colonel Horatio Sharpe, governor of colonial Maryland for sixteen years, left behind a testament to his position and wealth in the form of Whitehall, his plantation home on the Severn River. The home has been through many renovations, but in the 1950s, a man named Charles Scarlett bought the home and passionately attempted to restore it to its original glory. The restoration included building an earthwork fortification that at first glance appears to have been part of the original layout,...