Huguenot Heritage: Revisiting Curated Collections in NYC

Author(s): Theodor M Maghrak

Year: 2016

Summary

Previously excavated and curated collections are often seen as unworthy of serious scholarly attention. The drive to produce using entirely "new" excavations, artifacts, and data sets underlies and reinforces this pattern. This paper discusses two major components of using decades-old collections: research and responsibility. It first summarizes recent research demonstrating the accretion of class identity among French Huguenots in early 18th-century New York City. It then moves on to offer fruitful directions for using curated collections while engaging with the ethical responsibilities researchers are faced with as they encounter the collection as an artifact in and of itself, having endured years of institution-based taphonomy. Far from offering a de facto resolution, this paper works to address key concerns about curated collections that might otherwise deter new researchers.

Cite this Record

Huguenot Heritage: Revisiting Curated Collections in NYC. Theodor M Maghrak. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434288)

Keywords

Temporal Keywords
18th Century

Spatial Coverage

min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 498