Identifying The  Visible: A Look at How Economic Class and Ethnicity Influence Women's Visibility Within a  Household

Summary

Archaeology has allowed for underrepresented, often invisible, groups of people within history to become visible and have their stories told.  Despite archaeologists’ best efforts in identifying these underrepresented groups; there is still much work yet to be conducted. There is a lack of information from the eighteenth-century, and even less work done on the way ethnicity and class impact women’s visibility within the archaeological record.

This paper utilizes seven site reports, from households of different economic positions, dating to the eighteenth-century. Using ceramic assemblages and women’s activity related materials, I examine how factors such as class and ethnicity impact women’s visibility at these domestic sites. Analysis of this data shows distinct differences between women’s activities and visibility when comparing those of the upper class and those of the middle and lower classes, and parallels are seen in the assemblages of both the middle and lower classes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology of the Urban Working Class   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 13