Is Close Enough, Enough?: Negotiations of Self and Place in Castroville, Texas through Ceramics.

Summary

The mid-to-late-19th century marked a time of enormous material and social changearound the world. Newly available lands and a more fluid social structure made life in the American West, and Texas, especially desirable for immigrants from Europe. Immigrants from the French-German border region of Alsace sought and found opportunity in what would become Castroville, Texas. The Birys, a family within the community, sought opportunity like many new immigrants and faced many of the same challenges. They were forced to engage in negotiations of what it meant to be Alsatian in non-Alsatian settings. This paper reflects on these negotiations by examining the ceramic materials recovered from the Biry property. We will principally look at how women, as the primary consumers of ceramics, facilitated this mediation in the home through the deliberate choices made. Perhaps for the Birys, close enough was enough to construct an "Alsatian" home in Texas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Memory, Materiality, and Alsatian Identity in Castroville, Texas   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 339