Table Of ContentBookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
Historical Archaeology of Gendered Lives
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009 BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor:
Charles E. Orser, Jr., New York State Museum, Albany, New York, USA
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF RURAL CAPITALISM AND MATERIAL LIFE: The Gibbs
Farmstead in Southern Appalachia, 1790-1920
Mark D. Groover
ARCHAEOLOGY AND CREATED MEMORY: Public History in a National Park
Paul A. Shackel
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF HISTORY AND TRADITION: Moments of Danger in the Annapolis
Landscape
Christopher N. Matthews
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF MANNERS: The Polite World of the Merchant Elite of Colonial
Massachusetts
Lorinda B.R. Goodwin
AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOCIAL SPACE: Analyzing Coffee Plantations in Jamaica’s Blue
Mountains
James A. Delle
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE AND POWER: The Historical Archaeology of Colonial Ecuador
Ross W. Jamieson
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF GENDERED LIVES: Historical Archaeologies of Social
Relations in Deerfield, Massachusetts ca. 1750-ca. 1904
Deborah Rotman
THE HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGIES OF BUENOS AIRES: A City at the End of the World
Daniel Schavelzon
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGIES OF CAPITALISM
Edited by Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, Jr.
A HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: Breaking New Ground
Edited by Uzi Baram and Lynda Carroll
MEANING AND IDEOLOGY IN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLGY: Style, Social Identity, and
Capitalism in an Australian town
Heather Burke
RACE AND AFFLUENCE: An Archaeology of African America and Consumer Culture
Paul R. Mullins
RURAL SOCIETY IN THE AGE OF REASON
An Archaeology of the Emergence of Modern Life in the Southern Scottish Highlands
Chris Dalglish
A SPACE OF THEIR OWN: Lunatic Asylums in Britain, South Australia, and Tasmania
Susan Piddock
TE PUNA: A New Zealand Mission Station
Angela Middleton
A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each
new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further
information please contact the publisher. For the most current list of titles in this series, please visit:
www.Springer.com/Series/7534.
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
Deborah Rotman
Historical Archaeology
of Gendered Lives
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009 BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
Deborah Rotman
Department of Anthropology
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN
USA
ISBN 978-0-387-89667-0 e-ISBN 978-0-387-89668-7
DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-89668-7
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009926049
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written
permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York,
NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in
c onnection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.
The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are
not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject
to proprietary rights.
Cover illustration (Figure 6.6 from book): The Pocumtuck Basketmakers on the porch of the Manse, 1901.
Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen. Courtesy of Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Memorial
Hall Museum, Deerfield, Massachusetts.
Printed on acid-free paper
Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
For Anna, who fills my world with joy
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
Acknowledgments
Neither personal achievement nor academic scholarship arise from the efforts of a
single individual. Rather both are shaped by multiple influences and forces. I would
like to thank Anne Yentsch, Diana Wall, Paul Shackel, Parker Potter, Mark Leone,
and others, whose work figures so prominently in this volume and whose research
has been inspiring. I also wish to thank Janet Brashler of Grand Valley State
University, Michael Nassaney of Western Michigan University, and Bob Paynter of
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. As mentors and colleagues, the guid-
ance and support of these scholars has been invaluable to my growth as a profes-
sional anthropologist.
Work in Deerfield was greatly facilitated with the assistance of a variety of indi-
viduals from Historic Deerfield, Inc. (HDI), the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial
Association (PVMA), and affiliated individuals, including: David Bosse, Abbott
Lowell Cummings, Bill Flynt, Suzanne Flynt, Will Garrison, Christine Granat,
Mary Hawks, Anne Lanning, Judy Lawrence, Shirley Majewski, Susan McGowan,
Amelia Miller, Marla Miller, Martha Noblick, and Sharmain Prouty. Susan
Hautaniemi Leonard and Elizabeth Harlow were two fellow UMASS graduate stu-
dents/alumni whose work in Deerfield, through numerous conversations, has sig-
nificantly informed my own understandings of gendered social relations in the
village. Susan’s assistance was especially vital since she had served as the field
director for a number of the projects at the Moors site, while Elizabeth generously
shared her work on the Manse with me. I am particularly grateful for their intel-
lectual contributions to this work.
Historic Deerfield, Inc. and the Department of Anthropology at the University
of Massachusetts-Amherst provided financial and logistical support for the archae-
ological field projects at the various sites, which were often completed as summer
field schools. Additional financial support was provided in the form of a Graduate
School Fellowship for the dissertation work on which this volume is largely based.
I am grateful to Charlena Seymour, Graduate Dean, University of Massachusetts,
for providing that fellowship.
Many of my ideas regarding the influence of life cycle on expressions of gen-
dered social relations were first published in an essay entitled “Newlyweds, Young
Families, and Spinsters: A Consideration of Developmental Cycle in Historical
viivii
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009 BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
viii Acknowledgments
Archaeologies of Gender,” which appeared in the International Journal of
Historical Archaeology 9(1): 1–36 in March 2005. Thad Van Bueren, Rich Blanton,
and Andrew Bucker provided comments on an early draft of that essay. Charles
Orser, Jr., Elizabeth M. Scott, and one anonymous reviewer offered additional sug-
gestions for improvement of that manuscript. I am grateful for their assistance.
My critical analysis of the separation of spheres originally appeared in Current
Anthropology 47(4):666–674 (2006) in a research report titled, “Separate Spheres?:
Beyond the Dichotomies of Domesticity.” Evelyn Blackwood was especially instru-
mental in working with me on that essay. Benjamin Orlove and four anonymous
reviewers provided productive comments that significantly strengthened that work.
I first presented my work on gendered spaces at the Morris–Butler House in,
“Public Displays and Private Tasks: Nineteenth-Century Landscape Utilization and
Social Relations at the Morris-Butler House, Indianapolis, Indiana” (Midcontinental
Journal of Archaeology 32(1):89–116, Spring 2007). The project at the Morris–
Butler House received funding through a Department of Interior Historic Preservation
Survey and Planning Grant administered by the Indiana Department of Natural
Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. I am grateful to the
staff at the Morris–Butler House, a property of Historic Landmarks of Indiana,
particularly Shannon Borbely, Tiffany Sallee, Pat Moeller, and Mark Talley.
Students and staff at the Archaeological Resource Management Service of Ball
State University participated in this project, including Don Cochran, Mitch Zoll,
Beth McCord, Mike Angst, Karla Carmichael, Rachel Mancini, Sharon Cottrell,
Ronnica Robbins, and Mark Boatwright. Evelyn Blackwood, Mark Schurr, Jan
Brashler, and two anonymous reviewers provided guidance that greatly improved
the presentation of ideas within that essay.
Assorted friends, colleagues, and coconspirators also offered much needed
advice and encouragement during the writing of the dissertation and this book. My
thanks to: Susan Blum, Claire Carlson, Agustín Fuentes, Susan Goode-Null, Kai
Heidemann, Fayola Herod, Ann Kroll Lerner, Nancy Ladd Muller, Christopher
Null, Karen Pearce, Diane Pribbernow, Mary Robison, M.A. Swedlund, Michelle
Thornton, Heather Van Wormer, and Claire Wendland. Kit Curran prepared most of
the graphics in this volume, which had originally appeared in my dissertation.
Additional graphics work was completed by Maura Galbraith. Broughton Anderson
assisted with last-minute additional photography and artifact scanning. Each of
these individuals has in large and small ways shaped this work through personal
and professional interaction.
I would also like to thank Chuck Niquette at Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc.
(CRAI) in Lexington, Kentucky, for whom I worked during the final phases of writ-
ing my dissertation. My colleagues at CRAI – particularly Joan Wilson, Becky
Gillespie, Trina Maples, Alexandra Bybee, and Grant Day – were particularly
instrumental in expanding my knowledge about historic material culture.
I am also grateful to my Ph.D. dissertation committee. Patricia McGirr intro-
duced me to nineteenth-century poetry and short stories as well as a whole new
genre of literature on gendered landscapes. Alan Swedlund has taught be amaz-
ing things about human populations as well as an appreciation for fine chiles.
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
Acknowledgments ix
Of course, I am especially indebted to Bob Paynter, who spent countless hours
with me pouring over field notes, refitting ceramic vessels, reading multiple
drafts of my dissertation, and discussing the ideas contained within.
Finally, I owe particular thanks to my family. First and foremost, I wish to thank
my daughter, Anna Joy Rotman, who has been patient and understanding during the
many hours I worked instead of played. My thanks also to Jim and Linda Rotman;
Scott, Cindy, Cameron, and Madison Pikaart; and Jeff and Lori Ann Rotman. I appre-
ciate all you have done to help make my dreams realities.
BookID 162632_ChapID FM_Proof# 1 - 13/07/2009
Contents
1 Gender Ideologies as Complex Social Forces .......................................... 1
Gender Complexities Illustrated .................................................................... 2
Unique Contributions of this Research .......................................................... 5
The Organization of this Volume ................................................................... 8
2 Theoretical Framework for Understanding Gender
Roles and Relations .................................................................................... 11
Defning Gendered Social Relations .............................................................. 11
Gender Ideologies in America ....................................................................... 15
Republican Motherhood ........................................................................... 16
The Cult of Domesticity. .......................................................................... 19
Equal Rights Feminism ............................................................................ 25
Domestic Reform ..................................................................................... 27
Feminine Mystique .................................................................................. 28
Other Gender Ideologies .......................................................................... 29
Other Social and Cultural Forces that Shape Gender Roles
and Relations .................................................................................................. 30
The Social Relations of Class .................................................................. 31
Ethnic Identities, Other Identities ............................................................ 32
Rural, Urban, and Other Spaces ............................................................... 35
Dialectical Understandings of Gender Ideologies ......................................... 37
3 The Village, Families, and Archaeological Assemblages
in this Study ................................................................................................ 41
Early Settlement: 1665–ca. 1730 ................................................................... 41
Changing World View: ca. 1730–ca. 1776 ..................................................... 45
Emergence of New Elite Classes: ca. 1776–1850s ........................................ 47
A Mysterious Century: ca. 1850s–ca. 1936 ................................................... 48
Deerfeld Village as a Research Arena ........................................................... 48
xi
