Talking With Transfer-Printed Tea Cups: An Examination Of Early 19th-Century Domesticity Through Ceramic Pattern Symbolism And Vessel Forms From The Boston-Higginbotham House, Nantucket, MA.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeological Studies of Material Culture (General Sessions)" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the early 19th-century, ideologies of womanhood and domesticity were beginning to solidify in the mainstream media, in both black and white communities in New England, prescribing the roles of women. However, the ways women interpreted these ideologies in their daily lives likely differed and was complicated by their experiences of race and class differences. The archaeological remains of the household of Mary Boston Douglass, a free black woman living in the community of New Guinea on Nantucket, provides a case to examine free black womanhood during the 1820s-1830s. This paper will interrogate the engagement of ideals of domesticity by Mary Boston Douglass through examining ceramic pattern symbolism and vessel forms. This analysis suggests that Mary’s choices of ceramic wares, and the patterns that adorned them, were used to signal ideas to members of the household and community through daily consumption in both public and private settings.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeological Studies of Material Culture (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology