Barree Forge: A Pennsylvania Forge Town

Summary

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

This thesis proposal considers the Barree Forge and Furnace site located at the Greene Hills Methodist Camp near Alexandria, a town in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. The manufacturing structure participated in Pennsylvania’s Juniata Iron District as one of the top producers of iron throughout the 19th century, reaching peak production during the 1860s and 1870s before petering out during the 1880s. While the ruins of the furnace feature prominently, archaeological work conducted around this structure sought the location of destroyed portions of the building, including the forge itself. This thesis seeks to answer questions addressing the livelihood of workers in nearby tenement housing as evidenced by their material culture as opposed to the manufacturing of iron in the nearby forge, adopting a Marxist theoretical framework to interpret the archaeological record. As such, research will take place to the west of the forge to uncover potential worker housing structure foundations beneath the current landscape. Identifying potential housing will be conducted using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to locate potential cultural anomalies, followed by ground-truthing those anomalies to determine the presence and function of potential structures, and then determine the living conditions of residents in relation to Barree Forge through artifact assemblage analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37536.0