The WPA Ceramics Laboratories of the Penn Museum: A Collaborative Legacy

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

For decades, scientific approaches have acted as a cornerstone to the processes used by archaeologists to answer questions about past societies. However, just under a century ago, the integration of archaeological science into the wider discipline was undergoing its early steps. One formative series of research projects during this period included those undertaken by the WPA ceramics laboratories (1935–1942), a joint effort between the Works Progress Administration and the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (now called the Penn Museum). These efforts employed federally funded workers and the burgeoning methods of ceramic technological analysis to reveal more information on the Museum’s various ceramic collections than previously possible. Extensive research into the history and legacy of these original Museum laboratories reveal their role as a catalyst for the subsequent proliferation and continued development of ceramic analysis techniques, especially that of ceramic petrography, and archaeological science as a whole. Archival evidence proves that the scholarly networks formed by those involved in the WPA projects enabled the principles and methods of ceramic technological analysis to spread throughout the discipline, with the Museum laboratories serving as an early nexus and exemplar of the great possibilities held by these new approaches.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37767.0