In this Book

  • Household Chores and Household Choices: Theorizing the Domestic Sphere in Historical Archaeology
  • Book
  • Edited by Kerri S. Barile and James C. Brandon
  • 2011
  • Published by: The University of Alabama Press
summary

Discusses the concepts of “home,” “house,” and “household” in past societies

Because archaeology seeks to understand past societies, the concepts of "home," "house," and "household" are important. Yet they can be the most elusive of ideas. Are they the space occupied by a nuclear family or by an extended one? Is it a built structure or the sum of its contents? Is it a shelter against the elements, a gendered space, or an ephemeral place tied to emotion? We somehow believe that the household is a basic unit of culture but have failed to develop a theory for understanding the diversity of households in the historic (and prehistoric) periods.

In an effort to clarify these questions, this volume examines a broad range of households—a Spanish colonial rancho along the Rio Grande, Andrew Jackson's Hermitage in Tennessee, plantations in South Carolina and the Bahamas, a Colorado coal camp, a frontier Arkansas farm, a Freedman's Town eventually swallowed by Dallas, and plantations across the South—to define and theorize domestic space. The essays devolve from many disciplines, but all approach households from an archaeological perspective, looking at landscape analysis, excavations, reanalyzed collections, or archival records. Together, the essays present a body of knowledge that takes the identification, analysis, and interpretation of households far beyond current conceptions.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Frontmatter
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. List of Figures
  2. pp. vii-viii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. List of Tables
  2. p. ix
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. p. xi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Foreword
  2. pp. xiii-xiv
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1. Introduction: Household Chores; or, the Chore of Defining the Household
  2. pp. 1-12
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART I. A SENSE OF PLACE
  1. 2. Analysis of Household and Family at a Spanish Colonial Rancho along the Rio Grande
  2. pp. 15-32
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3. A Space of Our Own: Rede
  2. pp. 33-50
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4. Separate Kitchens and Intimate Archaeology: Constructing Urban Slavery on the Antebellum Cotton Frontier in Washington, Arkansas
  2. pp. 51-74
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5. “Living Symbols of their Lifelong Struggles”: In Search of the Home and Household in the Heart of Freedman's Town, Dallas, Texas
  2. pp. 75-106
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART II. A SENSE OF SPACE
  1. 6. Finding the Space Between Spatial Boundaries and Social Dynamics: The Archaeology of Nested Households
  2. pp. 109-120
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 7. Hegemony within the Household; The Perspective from a South Carolina Plantation
  2. pp. 121-137
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 8. A Historic Pay-for-Housework Community Household: The Cambridge Cooperative Housekeeping Society
  2. pp. 138-158
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 9. Fictive Kin in the Mountains: The Paternalistic Metaphor and Households in a California Logging Camp
  2. pp. 176-193
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART III. A SENSE OF BEING
  1. 10. The Ethnohistory and Archaeology of Nuevo Santander Rancho Households
  2. pp. 179-196
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 11. Reconstructing Domesticity and Segregating Households: The Intersections of Gender and Race in the Postbellum South
  2. pp. 197-209
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 12. Working-Class Households as Sites of Social Change
  2. pp. 210-232
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. PART IV. MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL: COMMENTARIES ON THE HOUSEHOLD
  1. 13. What Difference Does Feminist Theory Make in Researching Households? A Commentary
  2. pp. 235-253
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 14. Doing the Housework: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Households
  2. pp. 254-262
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. References
  2. pp. 263-305
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contributors
  2. pp. 307-308
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 309-312
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.