Gender and Age in the 18th – 19th century Worcester Porcelain Industries: relating the results of archaeological research to social history.

Summary

This poster will present some of the finds analysis from the Worcester Porcelain Project, which is conducting fieldwork in the suburbs and agricultural zones around the City of Worcester, in order to better understand the processes of industrial waste management prior to World War II. The study of industrial archaeology in Britain since the 1960s has emphasized monument and landscape studies, with emphasis on preservation and conservation of iconic factories and installations. In parallel to this work, a number of social historians and scholars have been recording production methods and exploring company archives, in order to critically evaluate the history of industry during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, in particular. These studies have contributed to our understanding of the nature of industrialization, including the roles and contributions of women and children. These results shed light on the stages of the industrial process, leading up to the production of marketable items. Importantly, the results have revealed artefacts which when seen in conjunction with local social and industrial histories can be confidently assigned to specific age and gender groups, most importantly male and female children. This offers the archaeologist an unusual opportunity to develop the link between artefact and gender studies.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

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