Intertwined Landscapes of Memorialization at Booker T. Washington National Monument

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Northeast Region National Park Service Archeological Landscapes and the Stories They Tell" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The site of Booker T. Washington’s birth and enslavement in Hardy County, Virginia has been honored since 1945 when the farm was purchased to serve both as a memorial and as a school. Eventually incorporated into the National Park system in the 1950s, this site has been the focal point of various historical landscape research endeavors seeking to interpret experiences of slavery, the Civil War, and emancipation. This paper will examine the intertwined nature of the varied perspectives that have resulted from past studies, with a particular focus on addressing the socio-political complexities inherent in establishing power and control of public interpretation. By addressing such issues as research motivations, shifting ideologies in the development of landscape theory, and the complexities of multivocality in site interpretation, we will consider how narratives of varying perspectives can fit within core interpretive frameworks.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Northeast Region National Park Service Archeological Landscapes and the Stories They Tell

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 544