The archaeology of institutional life / edited by April M. Beisaw and James G. Gibb.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Beisaw, April M.

Gibb, James G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social institutions--History.

Social institutions.

Social archaeology.

Archaeology and history.

Archaeology--Social aspects.

Archaeology.

Social history.

Public history.

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 249 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, [2009]

Summary:

Institutions pervade social life. They are often vested with the resources, authority, and power to enforce the orthodoxy of their time. But institutions are also arenas in which both orthodoxies and authority can be contested. Between power and opposition lies the individual experience of the institutionalized. Whether in a boarding school, hospital, prison, almshouse, commune, or asylum, the experiences of the individual can reflect the positive impact of an institution or its greatest failings. This interplay of orthodoxy, authority, opposition, and individual experience are all expressed in the materiality of institutions and are eminently subject to archaeological investigation.

This volume brings together twelve contributors whose research on a broad range of social institutions, taken in tandem, illuminates the experience of these institutions. Rather than a culmination of research on institutions, it is a landmark work that will instigate vigorous and wide-ranging discussions on institutions in Western life, and the power of material culture to both enforce and negate cultural norms.

Contents:

1 Introduction / James G. Gibb 1

2 Historical Overview of the Archaeology of Institutional Life / Sherene Baugher 5

I Method and Theory

3 On the Enigma of Incarceration: Philosophical Approaches to Confinement in the Modern Era / Eleanor Conlin Casella 17

4 Feminist Theory and the Historical Archaeology of Institutions / Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood 33

5 Constructing Institution-Specific Site Formation Models / April M. Beisaw 49

II Institutions of Education

6 Rural Education and Community Social Relations: Historical Archaeology of the Wea View Schoolhouse No. 8, Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana / Deborah L. Rotman 69

7 Individual Struggles and Institutional Goals: Small Voices from the Phoenix Indian School Track Site / Owen Lindauer 86

III Institutions of Communality

8 The Orphanage at Schulyer Mansion / Lois M. Feister 105

9 A Feminist Approach to European Ideologies of Poverty and the Institutionalization of the Poor in Falmouth, Massachusetts / Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood 117

10 Ideology, Idealism, and Reality: Investigating the Ephrata Commune / Stephen G. Warfel 137

IV Institutions of Incarceration

11 Maintaining or Mixing Southern Culture in a Northern Prison: Johnson's Island Military Prison / David R. Bush 153

12 Written on the Walls: Inmate Graffiti within Places of Confinement / Eleanor Conlin Casella 172

13 John Conolly's "Ideal" Asylum and Provisions for the Insane in Nineteenth-Century South Australia and Tasmania / Susan Piddock 187

14 The Future of the Archaeology of Institutions / Lu Ann De Cunzo 206.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [215]-241) and index.

ISBN:

081731637X

9780817316372

0817355162

9780817355166

081738118X

9780817381189

OCLC:

234257213