"America in Tears." The Revolutionary Foundations of National Identity Narratives.
Author(s): Diane F George
Year: 2020
Summary
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Advocacy in Archaeology: Thoughts from the Urban Frontier" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
What can we learn from urban archaeology about the early formation of American identity that can help us address the many current challenges to social justice? Historical narratives are constantly rewritten to serve various interests of power. Archaeology can help us to see the constructedness of those narratives and to become more informed advocates for change. This paper looks at several sites in lower Manhattan, all excavated through CRM projects, to interrogate the formation of national identity in the decades after the Revolutionary War. It takes the conclusions from this endeavor as a resource for deconstructing present-day narratives on social justice issues including immigration, wealth disparity, and the processes of urbanization.
Cite this Record
"America in Tears." The Revolutionary Foundations of National Identity Narratives.. Diane F George. 2020 ( tDAR id: 456788)
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Keywords
General
Historical Memory
•
national identity
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social justice
Geographic Keywords
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
late 18th-early 19th and present day
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): 664