Exploring African American Life through Small Finds from Poplar Forest’s Wing of Offices

Summary

This is an abstract from the "POSTER Session 1: A Focus on Cultures, Populations, and Ethnic Groups" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Archaeologists at Poplar Forest are revisiting the artifacts recovered during the excavation of the Wing of Offices, which serviced Jefferson’s retreat home and plantation in Bedford County, Virginia. This building included a kitchen and smokehouse along with two additional rooms that could have been used for other tasks, such as laundering clothes; spinning and weaving cloth; and providing a temporary cook’s quarters. The Wing was replaced in the 1840s with a detached kitchen and smokehouse, which was used by enslaved and free African Americans from the 1840s through the 1930s. Some of the most fascinating artifacts associated with this collection are those that speak in personal ways to the lives of the enslaved individuals associated with this space. This poster touches on several of these artifacts, which include personally modified and locally manufactured pieces of material culture as well as objects of personal adornment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• POSTER Session 1: A Focus on Cultures, Populations, and Ethnic Groups   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 425