Building the ‘City on a Hill’: Merchants and Their Houses in 17th-century England and America

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The merchant’s household was a vital nodal point in emergent global networks of commodities and cultural exchanges as both provider and consumer of exotic, luxurious and fashionable objects, and the early modern period witnessed profound changes in the role of domestic space in the construction of social networks, power and cultural identities within urban elites. This paper explores the importance of these debates for understanding domestic architecture in major mercantile cities in England and the New World in the seventeenth century, including Norwich and Bristol in England, and Boston and Salem in Massachusetts. Forces of cultural change and conservatism were negotiated through the adaptation of older architectural forms and the creation of new types of domestic space. In an increasingly capitalist socio-economic system, the domestic environment underwent significant re-definition as a site for the consumption and display of material wealth, and the articulation new discourses of status, authority and community.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Medieval to Modern Transitions and Historical Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 500