Behind the Scenes of Hollywood: The Intersectionality of Gender, Whiteness, and Reproductive Health

Summary

In ongoing research at Hollywood Plantation, a 19th century rural plantation in southeastern Arkansas, intersectionality, with its roots in Black feminist theory, plays two roles. It is an analytical tool for uncovering intersecting power relations, such as gender, whiteness, and reproductive health, as they emerged in the late 19th century. As patent medicines were increasingly marketed to women, medicine bottles provide a lens into rural upper class white women’s healing practices and the ways the discourses around these patent medicines regulated women to the domestic sphere. By going behind the scenes to uncover the changing practices and discourses of women’s self-care, intersectional archeology has the potential to help inform contemporary discussions of reproductive justice.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Intersectionality as Emancipatory Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 266