... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLE... more ... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLER. Article first published online: 3 SEP 2009. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: GARRETT FESLER. ...
Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Ale... more Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Alexandria’s archaeology program for fifty years. The program has evolved through the decades, reflecting changes in heritage values, and can serve as a model for community archaeology in other jurisdictions. Archaeology began in Alexandria in 1961 in response to community pressure, as development encroached upon historical and archaeological resources. Community input, support, and involvement led to the hiring of a trained City archaeologist in 1977, and rescue and reconstruction efforts gave way to a research focus. In 1989, responding to the vision of the citizen-based Alexandria Archaeological Commission, City Council passed the Archaeological Protection Code. Archaeological preservation, through mitigation and in situ protection, became integrated into the City’s planning process. Current collaborative projects include preservation planning for the City’s waterfront, creation of the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, and incorporation of African American heritage into public interpretation at Fort Ward Park.
Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of... more Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of nearby shovel test pits have yielded a few brick bits, some charcoal, maybe a stray piece of refined earthenware, perhaps a fragment of bottle glass. Now what? Do you move on and chalk this one up to “field scatter?” Do you hunker down and try to tease more diagnostics out of the ground? Or do you wing it and try to wordsmith it in the report as potentially eligible? Most are reluctant to admit that other factors—budget, time, crew skill level, personal interest—play a role in either “making” a site or letting it go. Philosophical issues play a role here too: what makes a site a site? What is significance? Who cares? Let us look at some non-preachy examples in the Chesapeake to seek some clarity, if it exists, regarding ephemeral historic sites.
I was twelve years old when I first became interested in American history. One afternoon in 197 6... more I was twelve years old when I first became interested in American history. One afternoon in 197 6 our next door neighbor Grace Tompkins opened her squeaky garage door. Sixty year old Grace was moving soon and needed help cleaning out her overcrowded garage. I was recruited to assist and hoped that perhaps I might find some old baseball cards, comic books, or a vintage electric train set to reward my efforts. Alas, it was all junk until we found four boxes labeled "Gail Harrison." These contained thousands of old letters, pictures, and many old diaries. Grace vaguely recalled that she had known a Gail Harrison some years earlier, but she was unsure about what to do with Gail's things. My mother suggested that our family buy them. Both seemed relieved to have saved something that seemed important. I carried the boxes to our garage, and as I grew up I spent many hours picking through Gail Harrison's things, reading letters, diaries, and documents, and learning about Gail and her family. Grace's recollection of Gail Harrison was murky. In the \ early 1960s Grace had befriended Gail who was very old and infirm. Grace ran errands for her and helped in the upkeep of her apartment. When Gail died in 1962, Grace disposed of her v meager estate. She could find no close living relatives, so she packed up and stored many of Gail's possessions, including the letters, diaries, and other family memorabilia that Gail had accumulated. omitted, it is her writing style, rather than her words, that may be the best clue to understanding who Jeannie Harrison was. Sometimes she did not seem to have much to write about, but the way she wrote conveyed the essence of this woman. The style in which Jeannie expressed herself in her diary was largely derived from her backround and from the values that she developed as a woman. She was raised in a closeknit, strict, Victorian environment. She became a proper lady, who knew that her primary goal was to marry, raise a family, and maintain an efficient, loving, moral, and pious household. She was not encouraged to express herself outside her domestic sphere and probably had little desire to do so. However, Jeannie was eventually forced to emerge out of her woman's sphere. In adulthood she lacked the archetypical family life that was encouraged of women of her generation because her husband Edmund did not provide a stable home environment over which she could preside. By the time Jeannie was almost fifty years old, she was forced to live apart from her husband because he was sickly and deranged. Thus, Jeannie obtained a degree of independence to move outside the restrictive mid-nineteenth century woman's sphere under which she had lived half a century. It was independence that Jeannie never had pursued actively. When Jeannie wrote her diary in 1887, she had been without Edmund for almost seven years. Because he was unable to support her, out of necessity she became a single, working mother. Although it might be desirable to champion Jeannie as an early feminist heroine, a pioneer of her gender, a successful business owner, and a real estate investor, in addition to a dutiful mother, she would never portrayed herself in that role and certainly did not in her diary. Jeannie was a strong, independent, resourceful woman in 1887, and these characteristics are quietly apparent in the diary, but she had adopted these traits reluctantly, because her husband was incapable of providing for her. Realizing that Jeannie did not turn to diary writing to discuss the joys and frustrations of her unique role in late nineteenth century American society is important. She was not writing every day to examine positive or negative aspects of being a single, working mother. She began keeping a diary simply because her sister gave her a notebook "and proposed that she and I begin keeping [one] from this time.. ." And it was useful to her. Jeannie used it primarily at a time in her life that was changing rapidly and seemed very complicated. With the diary she was able to maintain a degree of order during a period that must have felt a bit chaotic. The diary was useful to her then, and by being aware of the role it played for her, I began to be able to assess the value, or lack of value, that it has today. Jeannie's prosaic writing style and her lack of introspection are indicative of the kind of woman Jeannie was expected to be since childhood. Creativity and expression were encouraged only if they were channeled into avenues that enhanced motherhood or housewifery. Although diary writing could have been an opportunity to express openly sides of herself that were otherwise concealed, Jeannie did not do this. She valued herself as a proper lady-one who by necessity also had to work to provide for her children and to continue to maintain a home and family life-and shared no secret discontent with her fundamental self. At the beginning of this project, I was biased in evaluating Jeannie*s diary. Familiar with the difficult circumstances surrounding her life, I envisioned Jeannie as an opinionated, pioneering feminist of her time. I expected my preconceived evaluation of her to be reflected in her diary, and naturally I desired that she address these aspects of her life that I found most intriguing and that may have made her unusually "significant." But after reading her diary many times over, I found myself disappointed that Jeannie did not live up to my expectations. She was not the person I wished her to be, and I was frustrated that she devoted so little energy to the literary aspects of her writing. In only a handful of instances did she craft her language or explain events in detail. Her writing lacked clear personality, playfulness, or flair. However, by examining why Jeannie lacked literary creativity, I realized I could gain a fuller understanding of who Jeannie Harrison was and what she was telling me. x The lack of literary pretension is evidence that, unlike many diarists, Jeannie was not writing for any audience other than herself. It was truly a personal dialogue not meant to be shared. Because of this, there is no sense of personal or historical reflection in her diary. Many familiar published diaries were written consciously with a personal or historical agenda in mind, and as a result, it is this self-conscious perspective that tends to focus the eyes of historians. As a diarist, Jeannie lacked self-consciousness. This is an essential factor of her diary, and one that may be its most outstanding attribute if taken properly in its context. The fact that Jeannie*s diary lacks self-consciousness does tend to make it somewhat less entertaining than other diaries, because there is no need to wade through layers of psychological feints and fronts and hidden meanings. Instead, Jeannie's diary provides an unadulterated and honest representation of its author. Hardly more can be asked from an historical document. Because Jeannie never intended her diary to be seen, it is a true, forthright expression of the thoughts of one woman living in the late nineteenth century, and for this alone it has some historical merit. In the following introduction I chronicle the known historical facts of Jeannie*s life, although there are few enough of these. Her diary is the only document left to us that takes us inside the life and mind of Jeannie Harrison for most of one year. Frustrations and inconsistencies abound in her diary, as in any diary. Compared with the other known information about Jeannie, her sparse diary speaks loudest, and, for better or worse, is the only means to begin to understand what kind of person Jeannie Harrison was.
Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of... more Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of nearby shovel test pits have yielded a few brick bits, some charcoal, maybe a stray piece of refined earthenware, perhaps a fragment of bottle glass. Now what? Do you move on and chalk this one up to “field scatter?” Do you hunker down and try to tease more diagnostics out of the ground? Or do you wing it and try to wordsmith it in the report as potentially eligible? Most are reluctant to admit that other factors—budget, time, crew skill level, personal interest—play a role in either “making” a site or letting it go. Philosophical issues play a role here too: what makes a site a site? What is significance? Who cares? Let us look at some non-preachy examples in the Chesapeake to seek some clarity, if it exists, regarding ephemeral historic sites.
Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Ale... more Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Alexandria’s archaeology program for fifty years. The program has evolved through the decades, reflecting changes in heritage values, and can serve as a model for community archaeology in other jurisdictions. Archaeology began in Alexandria in 1961 in response to community pressure, as development encroached upon historical and archaeological resources. Community input, support, and involvement led to the hiring of a trained City archaeologist in 1977, and rescue and reconstruction efforts gave way to a research focus. In 1989, responding to the vision of the citizen-based Alexandria Archaeological Commission, City Council passed the Archaeological Protection Code. Archaeological preservation, through mitigation and in situ protection, became integrated into the City’s planning process. Current collaborative projects include preservation planning for the City’s waterfront, creation of the C...
... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLE... more ... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLER. Article first published online: 3 SEP 2009. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: GARRETT FESLER. ...
Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of... more Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of nearby shovel test pits have yielded a few brick bits, some charcoal, maybe a stray piece of refined earthenware, perhaps a fragment of bottle glass. Now what? Do you move on and chalk this one up to “field scatter?” Do you hunker down and try to tease more diagnostics out of the ground? Or do you wing it and try to wordsmith it in the report as potentially eligible? Most are reluctant to admit that other factors—budget, time, crew skill level, personal interest—play a role in either “making” a site or letting it go. Philosophical issues play a role here too: what makes a site a site? What is significance? Who cares? Let us look at some non-preachy examples in the Chesapeake to seek some clarity, if it exists, regarding ephemeral historic sites.
... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLE... more ... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLER. Article first published online: 3 SEP 2009. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: GARRETT FESLER. ...
Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Ale... more Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Alexandria’s archaeology program for fifty years. The program has evolved through the decades, reflecting changes in heritage values, and can serve as a model for community archaeology in other jurisdictions. Archaeology began in Alexandria in 1961 in response to community pressure, as development encroached upon historical and archaeological resources. Community input, support, and involvement led to the hiring of a trained City archaeologist in 1977, and rescue and reconstruction efforts gave way to a research focus. In 1989, responding to the vision of the citizen-based Alexandria Archaeological Commission, City Council passed the Archaeological Protection Code. Archaeological preservation, through mitigation and in situ protection, became integrated into the City’s planning process. Current collaborative projects include preservation planning for the City’s waterfront, creation of the Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, and incorporation of African American heritage into public interpretation at Fort Ward Park.
Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of... more Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of nearby shovel test pits have yielded a few brick bits, some charcoal, maybe a stray piece of refined earthenware, perhaps a fragment of bottle glass. Now what? Do you move on and chalk this one up to “field scatter?” Do you hunker down and try to tease more diagnostics out of the ground? Or do you wing it and try to wordsmith it in the report as potentially eligible? Most are reluctant to admit that other factors—budget, time, crew skill level, personal interest—play a role in either “making” a site or letting it go. Philosophical issues play a role here too: what makes a site a site? What is significance? Who cares? Let us look at some non-preachy examples in the Chesapeake to seek some clarity, if it exists, regarding ephemeral historic sites.
I was twelve years old when I first became interested in American history. One afternoon in 197 6... more I was twelve years old when I first became interested in American history. One afternoon in 197 6 our next door neighbor Grace Tompkins opened her squeaky garage door. Sixty year old Grace was moving soon and needed help cleaning out her overcrowded garage. I was recruited to assist and hoped that perhaps I might find some old baseball cards, comic books, or a vintage electric train set to reward my efforts. Alas, it was all junk until we found four boxes labeled "Gail Harrison." These contained thousands of old letters, pictures, and many old diaries. Grace vaguely recalled that she had known a Gail Harrison some years earlier, but she was unsure about what to do with Gail's things. My mother suggested that our family buy them. Both seemed relieved to have saved something that seemed important. I carried the boxes to our garage, and as I grew up I spent many hours picking through Gail Harrison's things, reading letters, diaries, and documents, and learning about Gail and her family. Grace's recollection of Gail Harrison was murky. In the \ early 1960s Grace had befriended Gail who was very old and infirm. Grace ran errands for her and helped in the upkeep of her apartment. When Gail died in 1962, Grace disposed of her v meager estate. She could find no close living relatives, so she packed up and stored many of Gail's possessions, including the letters, diaries, and other family memorabilia that Gail had accumulated. omitted, it is her writing style, rather than her words, that may be the best clue to understanding who Jeannie Harrison was. Sometimes she did not seem to have much to write about, but the way she wrote conveyed the essence of this woman. The style in which Jeannie expressed herself in her diary was largely derived from her backround and from the values that she developed as a woman. She was raised in a closeknit, strict, Victorian environment. She became a proper lady, who knew that her primary goal was to marry, raise a family, and maintain an efficient, loving, moral, and pious household. She was not encouraged to express herself outside her domestic sphere and probably had little desire to do so. However, Jeannie was eventually forced to emerge out of her woman's sphere. In adulthood she lacked the archetypical family life that was encouraged of women of her generation because her husband Edmund did not provide a stable home environment over which she could preside. By the time Jeannie was almost fifty years old, she was forced to live apart from her husband because he was sickly and deranged. Thus, Jeannie obtained a degree of independence to move outside the restrictive mid-nineteenth century woman's sphere under which she had lived half a century. It was independence that Jeannie never had pursued actively. When Jeannie wrote her diary in 1887, she had been without Edmund for almost seven years. Because he was unable to support her, out of necessity she became a single, working mother. Although it might be desirable to champion Jeannie as an early feminist heroine, a pioneer of her gender, a successful business owner, and a real estate investor, in addition to a dutiful mother, she would never portrayed herself in that role and certainly did not in her diary. Jeannie was a strong, independent, resourceful woman in 1887, and these characteristics are quietly apparent in the diary, but she had adopted these traits reluctantly, because her husband was incapable of providing for her. Realizing that Jeannie did not turn to diary writing to discuss the joys and frustrations of her unique role in late nineteenth century American society is important. She was not writing every day to examine positive or negative aspects of being a single, working mother. She began keeping a diary simply because her sister gave her a notebook "and proposed that she and I begin keeping [one] from this time.. ." And it was useful to her. Jeannie used it primarily at a time in her life that was changing rapidly and seemed very complicated. With the diary she was able to maintain a degree of order during a period that must have felt a bit chaotic. The diary was useful to her then, and by being aware of the role it played for her, I began to be able to assess the value, or lack of value, that it has today. Jeannie's prosaic writing style and her lack of introspection are indicative of the kind of woman Jeannie was expected to be since childhood. Creativity and expression were encouraged only if they were channeled into avenues that enhanced motherhood or housewifery. Although diary writing could have been an opportunity to express openly sides of herself that were otherwise concealed, Jeannie did not do this. She valued herself as a proper lady-one who by necessity also had to work to provide for her children and to continue to maintain a home and family life-and shared no secret discontent with her fundamental self. At the beginning of this project, I was biased in evaluating Jeannie*s diary. Familiar with the difficult circumstances surrounding her life, I envisioned Jeannie as an opinionated, pioneering feminist of her time. I expected my preconceived evaluation of her to be reflected in her diary, and naturally I desired that she address these aspects of her life that I found most intriguing and that may have made her unusually "significant." But after reading her diary many times over, I found myself disappointed that Jeannie did not live up to my expectations. She was not the person I wished her to be, and I was frustrated that she devoted so little energy to the literary aspects of her writing. In only a handful of instances did she craft her language or explain events in detail. Her writing lacked clear personality, playfulness, or flair. However, by examining why Jeannie lacked literary creativity, I realized I could gain a fuller understanding of who Jeannie Harrison was and what she was telling me. x The lack of literary pretension is evidence that, unlike many diarists, Jeannie was not writing for any audience other than herself. It was truly a personal dialogue not meant to be shared. Because of this, there is no sense of personal or historical reflection in her diary. Many familiar published diaries were written consciously with a personal or historical agenda in mind, and as a result, it is this self-conscious perspective that tends to focus the eyes of historians. As a diarist, Jeannie lacked self-consciousness. This is an essential factor of her diary, and one that may be its most outstanding attribute if taken properly in its context. The fact that Jeannie*s diary lacks self-consciousness does tend to make it somewhat less entertaining than other diaries, because there is no need to wade through layers of psychological feints and fronts and hidden meanings. Instead, Jeannie's diary provides an unadulterated and honest representation of its author. Hardly more can be asked from an historical document. Because Jeannie never intended her diary to be seen, it is a true, forthright expression of the thoughts of one woman living in the late nineteenth century, and for this alone it has some historical merit. In the following introduction I chronicle the known historical facts of Jeannie*s life, although there are few enough of these. Her diary is the only document left to us that takes us inside the life and mind of Jeannie Harrison for most of one year. Frustrations and inconsistencies abound in her diary, as in any diary. Compared with the other known information about Jeannie, her sparse diary speaks loudest, and, for better or worse, is the only means to begin to understand what kind of person Jeannie Harrison was.
Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of... more Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of nearby shovel test pits have yielded a few brick bits, some charcoal, maybe a stray piece of refined earthenware, perhaps a fragment of bottle glass. Now what? Do you move on and chalk this one up to “field scatter?” Do you hunker down and try to tease more diagnostics out of the ground? Or do you wing it and try to wordsmith it in the report as potentially eligible? Most are reluctant to admit that other factors—budget, time, crew skill level, personal interest—play a role in either “making” a site or letting it go. Philosophical issues play a role here too: what makes a site a site? What is significance? Who cares? Let us look at some non-preachy examples in the Chesapeake to seek some clarity, if it exists, regarding ephemeral historic sites.
Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Ale... more Collaboration between professionals and the community has remained integral to the success of Alexandria’s archaeology program for fifty years. The program has evolved through the decades, reflecting changes in heritage values, and can serve as a model for community archaeology in other jurisdictions. Archaeology began in Alexandria in 1961 in response to community pressure, as development encroached upon historical and archaeological resources. Community input, support, and involvement led to the hiring of a trained City archaeologist in 1977, and rescue and reconstruction efforts gave way to a research focus. In 1989, responding to the vision of the citizen-based Alexandria Archaeological Commission, City Council passed the Archaeological Protection Code. Archaeological preservation, through mitigation and in situ protection, became integrated into the City’s planning process. Current collaborative projects include preservation planning for the City’s waterfront, creation of the C...
... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLE... more ... Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing by Mary Carolyn Beaudry. GARRETTFESLER. Article first published online: 3 SEP 2009. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: GARRETT FESLER. ...
Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of... more Most field directors of Phase I archaeological surveys frequently face this dilemma: a handful of nearby shovel test pits have yielded a few brick bits, some charcoal, maybe a stray piece of refined earthenware, perhaps a fragment of bottle glass. Now what? Do you move on and chalk this one up to “field scatter?” Do you hunker down and try to tease more diagnostics out of the ground? Or do you wing it and try to wordsmith it in the report as potentially eligible? Most are reluctant to admit that other factors—budget, time, crew skill level, personal interest—play a role in either “making” a site or letting it go. Philosophical issues play a role here too: what makes a site a site? What is significance? Who cares? Let us look at some non-preachy examples in the Chesapeake to seek some clarity, if it exists, regarding ephemeral historic sites.
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