Abstract
Two families—the Moors and the Balls—occupied a 19th-century house on the main street of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Archaeological assemblages associated with each of the households showed disconnects between gender ideals (notably the cult of domesticity for which the architectural style of the house itself is iconic) and the realities of poverty, raising children, and life cycle. In this article, I explore how variations in the materiality and spatiality of gender ideologies were more than simply deviations from middle-class cultural norms. Rather, they represented active negotiation of dominant ideals and the construction of alternate meaningful gender relations and forms of domesticity.
Extracto
Dos familias, las familias Moor y Ball, ocupaban una casa del siglo XIX en la calle principal de Deerfield, Massachusetts. Los conjuntos arqueológicos asociados a cada uno de los hogares mostraron desconexiones entre los ideales de género (en particular, el culto de la vida doméstica de la que el estilo arquitectónico de la casa es en sí un icono) y las realidades de la pobreza, crianza de los hijos y el ciclo de vida. En este artículo, exploro cómo las variaciones en la materialidad y la espacialidad de las ideologías de género eran más que simples desviaciones de las normas culturales de la clase media. Más bien, representaban la negociación activa de ideales dominantes y la construcción de relaciones de género y formas de domesticidad significativas y alternativas.
Résumé
Deux familles, les Moors et les Balls, vivaient dans une maison du 19e siècle de la rue principale de Deerfield au Massachusetts. Des assemblages archéologiques associés à chacun des ménages soulèvent des écarts entre les idéaux stylistiques (notamment le culte de la domesticité, pour lequel le style architectural de la maison même est emblématique) et les réalités de la pauvreté, des enfants à élever et du cycle de vie. Dans le présent article, j’explore la façon dont les écarts observés dans la matérialité et la spatialité des idéologies stylistiques faisaient plus que s’écarter des normes culturelles de la classe moyenne. Ils représentaient plutôt un processus de négociation active des idéaux dominants et de construction d’autres relations stylistiques et formes significatives de la domesticité.
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Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank Diana Wall, whose work figures so prominently in this research. This project would not have been possible without the assistance of the staff of Historic Deerfield, Inc., and the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, especially Suzanne Flynt, Mary Hawks, Judy Lawrence, Christine Granat, David Bosse, Martha Noblick, Sharmain Prouty, Shirley Majewski, Bill Flynt, Will Garrison, Abbott Lowell Cummings, Amelia Miller, Susan McGowan, Marla Miller, and Anne Lanning. Historic Deerfield, Inc., and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst provided the financial and logistical support for the archaeology. Bob Paynter, Susan Hautaniemi, and Elizabeth Harlow were especially generous in their discussions with me about Deerfield. I am also grateful to Evie Blackwood, Andrew Buckser, Elizabeth M. Scott, Thad Van Bueren, and one anonymous reviewer. My thanks to Linda Ziegenbein, Quentin Lewis, and Bob Paynter for the opportunity to participate in this special thematic collection.
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Rotman, D.L. Domestic Ideals and Lived Realities: Gendered Social Relations at the Moors House, Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1848–1882. Hist Arch 53, 341–353 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-019-00187-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-019-00187-7