What is There for Remembrance?: Finding Significance and Integrity at Places of Labor Conflict and Violence

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Hidden Battlefields: Power, Memory, and Preservation of Sites of Armed Conflict" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

For as long as work and inequality have been intertwined, there has been conflict over the issues of working and living conditions, pay, competition, power, and sovereignty. While often peaceful, sometimes this conflict has erupted into lengthy extensive violence between opposing sides. Place- based historic preservation in the United States focuses on assessing a site’s integrity and significance for official recognition, using these characterizations to define if there is a “there” present for remembrance. For this and other reasons, places associated with these frequently uncomfortable, ephemeral, or inconvenient histories of labor conflict tend to be poorly marked on our landscapes. How can we appropriately apply the criteria of significance and integrity to define what remains of the nation’s heritage of labor conflict?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hidden Battlefields: Power, Memory, and Preservation of Sites of Armed Conflict   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology