Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2024

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast," at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Historical archaeology in the northeastern United States has a long and vibrant history of identifying and interpreting material histories of communities marginalized by racism and other intersecting forms of violence. Papers in the session add new sites and analyses to this body of work. The focus remains on recovering information about the lives of those ignored, deliberately obscured, and harmed by the dominant society to understand their social positions as well as their resiliency despite living through difficult conditions. These case studies demonstrate many different ways people and communities established solid ground to stand on and advance their interests. These acts provide valuable insight into the strategies used to undermine social violence as well as ways American identities formed on the margins.

Other Keywords
Resilience • Descendant Community • Church • Medicine • Race • Dress • Community • African Americans • Monuments • Landscape

Geographic Keywords
Northeast • Northeast United States • New York • Northeast US • Upper Mid-Atlantic • Lenapehoking, presently Northeastern United States • Northeast America • Northeastern U.S.A. • Nunatsiavut • New York City, Northeast U.S.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-13 of 13)

  • Documents (13)
Documents
  • Archaeology of Agricultural Labor Exploitation and Perpetual Debt; Migrant Labor Camps of Suffolk County, New York (1943-2000) (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott R. Ferrara.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Agriculture in the United States is rooted in the exploitation of labor and class and carries a legacy into the present-day agricultural industry. This paper examines migrant labor camps in New York, from 1943-2000, which trapped thousands of migrant farm laborers from the American South and Caribbean into systems...

  • Black Consumerism, Social Life, and a Rising Middle Class in 19th-Century New Jersey (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Will M Williams.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. References to the Black community living along Dunkerhook Road in late 19th and early 20th century Bergen County, NJ newspapers often provided a narrow and paternalistic lens through which to view the community. Commonly reported were their social and church activities, and two residents of the road, Catherine...

  • Chief Corner Stones: Expressions of Choice and Resistance in the AME Zion Church (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only MyKayla Williamson.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper investigates the historical significance of unity, resistance, and leadership within the early African Methodist Episcopal Church. By employing methodological frameworks that incorporate anthropological theory, Black and African-descendant feminisms, critical race theory, and ethnohistory, the study...

  • Decolonizing monument making in Newark, NJ: the Harriet Tubman Memorial (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher N. Matthews. Noelle L. Williams. James Amemasor. Michael J Gall.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 2023, the city of Newark, NJ unveiled, Shadow of a Face, a new monument dedicated to Harriet Tubman and the activists of the underground railroad. The monumengt was placed in the space previously occupied by a monument to Christopher Columbus. Unlike this and other mmonuments in the city the Tubman memorial...

  • Inuit and American Assemblages of a Cold War Radar Base (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma C Gilheany.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper examines the results from a multi-modal survey conducted on the northeastern-most coast of North America. It focuses on the assemblage of a Cold War radar base constructed near the community of Hopedale, Nunatsiavut, the Inuit self-governing region of Labrador, Canada. This assemblage reveals the dual...

  • Known as a Welcoming Place: The Construction of Community and Memory in a Black Summer Community, Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, 1870 – 1950 (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey J Burnett.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This paper reflects on and shares insights from the Oak Bluffs Historic Highlands Archaeology (OBHHA) project, a community-based historic landscape study that maps the construction and growth of an early-20th Black vacationing community in the Highlands area of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts. The project focuses on the...

  • Medicine and Resilience in a Free Black community in New Jersey (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Cristina L Bueso.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Located on what was considered “undesirable” land, a community founded by formerly enslaved Africans in the mid-19th century was able to thrive in the last northern state to abolish slavery. This paper will utilize the historical record as well as findings from a recent archeological survey to examine the...

  • New Perspectives on Descendant Community Engagement: Research at the Catoctin Ironworks Furnace (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexandra M McDougle.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The ongoing work at the Catoctin Furnace Historical Society offers a powerful example of the complexities of Descendant Community engagement. Biological descendants of the 18th and 19th century Black Ironworkers of the Catoctin Iron Furnace in Western Maryland have recently been identified using genealogy and...

  • Object Histories: A Lead Kosher Seal From New York City’s Five Points (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Miriam Entin.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the 1840s, Jewish Five Points resident Harris Goldberg discarded trash behind his 472 Pearl Street home. 150 years later, archaeologists recovered remnants of a roast beef dinner, fragments of glass tableware, and even the skull of a household pet parrot. Another interesting discovery was that of several lead...

  • Resilience and Resistance through Reclamation Storytelling (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Leah H. Mollin-Kling. Dr. Kelly M. Britt.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The practices and policies of urban planning often result in the ongoing physical and social marginalization of certain neighborhoods and residents, perpetuating white supremacy and classism. Historic preservation and archaeological practice are implicated in these continual moves towards (re)marginalization,...

  • Restoring Sacred Spaces: Archaeology of Cemeteries Associated with Marginalized Groups in New York City (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth D. Meade.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The archaeological investigation of the African Burial Ground in Lower Manhattan changed the way that archaeologists engage with descendant communities in NYC and beyond. Nearly all of the burial places for free and enslaved persons of African descent in NYC were destroyed and redeveloped, usually without the...

  • Self-Sufficiency in Seneca Village (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meredith B. Linn. Nan A. Rothschild. Diana diZerega Wall.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In 1825, two years before Emancipation in New York State and in a climate of intense anti-Black racism, two Black men purchased land north of the urban core of New York City. Over the next three decades, other Black men and women and European (mostly Irish) immigrants also purchased land there. Together they...

  • Unearthing Black Ecologies in Lenapehoking (2024)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Hicks.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology of Marginalization and Resilience in the Northeast", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. This work excavates the ecological and land-based strategies of Black communities during the 19th century amidst the layered contexts of recent emancipation from enslavement and the ongoing violence of racial capitalism. Archaeofaunal remains from the Dunkerhook community, in what is today called Paramus, New...