The Archaeology of Citizenship in the Nation’s Capital: Reconsidering D.C.’s Legacy Collections

Summary

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

As the United States redeveloped restrictions on birthright and naturalized citizenship over the late nineteenth century, Washington, DC, served as a testing ground even though none of its residents held full citizenship because they lived in the city. Depending on the issue at stake, definitions of good citizenship increasingly integrated private consumption – from cleanliness to childrearing - with public consumption like trash in front yards or visits to beer gardens. Archaeologists readily direct analysis to the primary objects of these discourses, from teaware to alcohol. Our approaches less frequently consider the political and moral implications attached to the range of daily consumption that occurred alongside trends in important objects. This paper revisits archaeological collections from across the District to compare the domestic consumption of working class District-born, migrant, and immigrant Washingtonians. Attending to how goods were used allows us to understand citizenship not only through a set of objects indexing political participation but as material practices that can change the terms of that participation. How did Washingtonians fashion alternative forms of power and belonging after the end of Reconstruction?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39453.0