Retrospective: 50 Years Of Research And Changing Narratives At Catoctin Furnace, Maryland

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Retrospective: 50 Years Of Research And Changing Narratives At Catoctin Furnace, Maryland," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Fifty years ago, Catoctin Furnace was inscribed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, and the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society was chartered. A cultural resources study undertaken in 1971, as well as the National Register nomination form, are remarkable in the omission of any mention of enslaved workers. In fact, the majority of furnace workers between 1776 and 1830 were enslaved Africans, and furnace owners were the largest slaveholders in the county. During the past 50 years, archaeological, architectural, cultural landscape, forensic anthropological, aDNA, geomorphological, and related studies have focused attention on the role of enslaved and freed African American workers, fueled by the discovery of an African American cemetery in 1977. This session provides an overview of memory activism, archaeology, historic preservation, and reparative heritage at Catoctin Furnace, demonstrating the power of reanalysis, interdisciplinary collaboration, community involvement, heritage tourism, economic development, and human rights in a heritage community.