"The Rules of Good Breeding Must be Punctiliously Observed": Constructing Space at Mid-Nineteenth Century Fort Vancouver, Washington

Summary

The U.S. Army’s Fort Vancouver in southwest Washington was headquarters for Pacific Northwest military exploration and campaigns in the mid-19th century. Between 1849 and the mid-1880s, members of the military community operated within a rigid social climate with firm cultural expectations and rules of behavior that were explicitly codified and articulated within the larger Victorian societal culture of gentility. Drawing upon datasets derived from the archaeological record and documentary sources, I examine how the military system reproduced and reinforced culturally idealized class and gender roles through multiple levels of constructed space simultaneously. The built environment, internal military resource distribution system, and military regulations provided formal, institutionalized metaphors that embodied and transmitted military values simultaneously at the community, household, and individual levels of space. The experiences of both men and women are discussed for three military households: junior commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers and laundresses, and enlisted men. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Landscapes of Colonialism in the North American West

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 394