Confronting Uncomfortable Pasts: Gender and Domestic Violence in Pennsylvania Company Towns, 1850 to Present
Author(s): V. Camille Westmont; Mikaela Girard
Year: 2016
Summary
Historical archaeology has an opportunity to tell histories that have been obscured, overlooked, or forgotten, purposefully or otherwise, through the passage of time; however, some of these facets of the past continue to ring true in the present. Archaeologists from the University of Maryland have documented patterns and stories of domestic violence in small company "patch" towns in Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Anthracite coal region covering nearly 100 years of history. Oral histories with town residents have brought to the surface the daily structural violence men, women, and children navigated throughout their lives, and the Anthracite Heritage Project has uncovered an archaeological record that supports and, in some cases, elaborates on these stories. This paper explores two of these specific instances and opens a larger discussion of the role of historical archaeologists in addressing our societal ills of the past and our duty to demand change in the present.
Cite this Record
Confronting Uncomfortable Pasts: Gender and Domestic Violence in Pennsylvania Company Towns, 1850 to Present. V. Camille Westmont, Mikaela Girard. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434706)
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Keywords
General
Gender
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labor archaeology
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social justice
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
20th 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): 358