Images of Race in the Colonies: The Material Culture of Food, Foodways, and Early Twentieth-Century American Imperialism

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The use of popular images containing people of color in colonial settings serve as a useful tool for archaeologists using widely circulated images like advertising for explaining or enhancing discussions regarding racial and social differences found in the historical record. However, as more than a supplement to archaeological discussion, these images can be used as sources of historical and archaeological information regarding social status, roles in economic production, race, and culture. For example, photographs of foreign countries during the height of American imperialism have contributed to hierarchical notions of race, space, and civilization, as well as the “othering” of colonial peoples and places. More specifically, selections from a group of ads that will be discussed here can be placed soundly within the scientific and imperial rhetoric of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries concerning the depiction of colonial peoples and places. Using these images as evidence of commercial imperialism and commodity racism, it can be demonstrated how food products, through their ubiquity, serve as common and powerful examples of material culture that promoted and established, not only American global economies and ideals about food and foodways but also constructs of racial difference in colonial populations during this era.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35534.0