Memory and life in ninteenth-century Sacramento

Summary

In 1979, a trunk of artifacts was discovered concealed within a Sacramento house. The artifacts, photographs, and documents pertain primarily to the life of May Woolsey, who died in 1879 at age twelve. This paper seeks to investigate the assemblage and explore how interpretations involving memory can contribute towards an understanding of identity, childhood, and biography. The association of the artifacts in the assemblage, the curation of the artifacts, and the context of the trunk all have implications regarding the lives of the people who were connected to it. By considering themes of memory, this paper will examine identity, personhood, family, and biography in nineteenth-century California. This paper also contemplates different scales and types of memory which are useful for archaeological interpretation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• "Unless We Remember We Cannot Understand": Archaeological Inquiries into the Act of Remembering

Keywords

Spatial Coverage