An Archaeological Study of Rural Capitalism and Material Life: The Gibbs Farmstead in Southern Appalachia, 1790-1920 (Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology)

343 Pages·2003·11.8 MB·English

by  Mark D. Groover

An Archaeological
Study of Rural
Capitalism and
Material Life
The Gibbs Farmstead in
Southern Appalachia, 1790–1920
CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Series Editor:
Charles E. Orser, Jr., Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF RURAL CAPITALISM AND
MATERIAL LIFE: The Gibbs Farmstead in Southern Appalachia,
1790–1920
Mark D. Groover
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An Archaeological
Study of Rural
Capitalism and
Material Life
The Gibbs Farmstead in
Southern Appalachia, 1790–1920
Mark D. Groover
Ball State University
Muncie, Indiana
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To Charles Faulkner, scholar, mentor, and friend.
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Foreword
The history of archaeological research at the Gibbs site parallels chang-
ing theoretical approaches in American historical archaeology that
ultimately transformed this study from a local to a global perspec-
tive. When excavation began at the Gibbs site in 1987, historical ar-
chaeology in East Tennessee had largely focused on the study of early
military sites and the homes of upper class Anglo-Americans. Some-
times called “historical supplementation” (Deagan 1982), this archae-
ological research was viewed as a supplement or handmaiden to local
histories that also largely documented the lives of white male polit-
ical and military leaders of the 18th and 19th centuries. However,
during the decade of excavation at this late 18th and 19th centuryfarm-
stead, a new theoretical approach in historical archaeology was adopted
in East Tennessee. Humanistic historical archaeology (Deagan 1982)
did not focus on political and military histories, or the most promi-
nent local hero, but on the historically invisible people in American
society.
Because these undocumented people were not highly visible upper
class Anglo-American males, the study of ethnicity and gender in the
archaeological record became an important goal in the humanistic ap-
proach. Fieldwork also shifted from excavation of upper class homes
to the domestic remains of the laborers and servants who maintained
these mansions, and the yeoman farmers who made up the majority of
the rural population.
The artifacts of these often historically overlooked people are found
in their backyards where they spent most of their working lives. An im-
portant aspect of backyard archaeology was the search for so-called
ethnic markers. It was this search for ethnicity in archaeological re-
mains that drew the historical archaeology program in the University
of Tennessee Anthropology Department to the humble Gibbs log house.
In 1987, the Nicholas Gibbs Historical Society asked me to begin ar-
chaeological excavations at the Gibbs house site to locate the long for-
gotten outbuildings that had supportedthis late 18th and 19th century
farmstead. While certainly interested in the architectural remains at
the site, I accepted their invitation largely due to curiosity about how
vii
viii Foreword
the material culture of the German-American Gibbs family compared
to that of Anglo-American settlers that had already been studied in
the Knoxville area (Faulkner 1984). The focus of this initial excavation,
therefore, largely centered on looking for German ethnic markers.
Since I was ostensibly searching for outbuildings, fieldwork con-
sisted of opening 3-×-3-foot square units in the rear yard of the house
in areas where a memory map drawn by the last Gibbs family descen-
dant to live on the farm showed the locations of former buildings. Coring
and probing during initialfieldwork likewise indicated the presence of
buried architectural remains in areas denoted on the memory map.
Excavation was largely designed for an archaeological field school in
which students learned how to excavate in stratigraphic levels and
identify and dig architectural features that would presumably pro-
duce ethnic markers distinguishing the Gibbs family from their Anglo-
American neighbors.
After a couple of field seasons, I was sorely disappointed. The re-
mains of the buildings that we found appeared exactly like those on
comparable Southern Appalachian farms inhabited by Anglo-American
households, and except for a high proportion of lead-glazed redware,
there appeared to be no German ethnic markers in the Gibbs material
culture. The archaeological remains indicated Nicholas Gibbs and his
family were scarcely different from their pioneer English and Scots-
Irish contemporaries.
While my field schools continued to pursue the mandate to find
the remains of outbuildings on the Gibbs site into the 1990s, our study
of domestic artifacts underwent a significant transformation, initially
due to our failure to identify “Germaness” in the material culture of the
Gibbs family, but ultimately because of an application of alternative
theoretical approaches to the Gibbs data. Adopting middle range the-
ory and a processual approach, two master’s theses were subsequently
written with the Gibbs archaeological data. These studies addressed
nail use, distribution, and condition on the site (Young 1991) and fron-
tier subsistence among the Gibbs family (Lev-Tov 1994). In my own
research, comparison of the Gibbs family material culture, especially
refined ceramics, to those used by local upper class families revealed
that while the Gibbs did not set as elegant a table (for example, Chinese
import porcelain serving pieces were rare in their household inven-
tory) both Gibbs and their wealthier neighbors shared the same de-
sire and ability to obtain goods on the international market, despite
their so-called “isolation” on the backside of the Appalachian Mountains
(Faulkner 2000). The revelation that East Tennessee farmers like the
Gibbs were actively engaged in the global economy and the fact that
there appeared to be a general homogeneity in cultural patterns among
Foreword ix
yeomen of the Southern Appalachian frontier resulted in a fresh look
at 19th-century life at the Gibbs farmstead.
This new approach reached fruition in 1997 when Ph.D. student
Mark Groover applied interpretive perspectives of ruralcapitalism and
patrimony to archaeological and architectural data at the Gibbs site
combined with 19th century primary documents, the latter providing
a wealth of evidence to contextualize the Gibbs material culture. This
approach is a classic example of what has been termed “humanistic
science” in historical archaeology (Deagan 1982).
Groover returned to the site where the remainder of the rear house-
lot was systematically shovel tested by a field school under his direc-
tion to gather additional information. Temporal changes in structures
and activities on the farm, and the architecture of the Gibbs house
were carefully examined to detect remodeling and additions during its
200-year history. While using theory and concepts within the world
systems perspective, Groover also developed new ways of reconstruct-
ing temporal process that linked material consumption and landscape
events to household dynamics within four generations of the Gibbs
family. The underlying catalyst of household life at the farmstead
was seen to have been influenced by patrimony and rural capitalism.
While one could argue that the participation of the Gibbs family in the
19th-century marketeconomy was due to other factors such as the ac-
quisition of material status symbols, emergence of female expression in
the household, or simply attraction to popular culture, Groover makes
a strong case that maintaining the family homeplace and acquiring
farmland for succeeding generations were the major reasons that they
participated in the commercial economy.
During the last decade the theoretical approach of humanistic
science in historical archaeology has led to many innovative and promis-
ing interpretations of past American culture. Mark Groover’s study is a
significant contribution to historical archaeology since he convincingly
demonstrates that during the 19th century in Southern Appalachia,
historical change within the material culture used by yeoman farmers
was largely due to external factors (like the rise of rural capitalism)
plus internal factors, such as social relationships and patrimony ev-
ident in primary historical documents. Additionally, this study is an
enlightened contribution to American social history because it reveals
that these so-called “yesterday’s people” were in reality modern players
in the on-going process of economic globalization.
CHARLESH. FAULKNER
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee