Family Archiving

The North American fur trade left an enduring material legacy of the complex interactions between natives and Europeans. From the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, the demand for pelts and skins transformed America, helping to fuel the Age of Discovery and, later, Manifest Destiny. By synthesizing its social, economic, and ideological effects, Nassaney reveals how this extractive economy contributed to the American experience. Including research from historical archaeologists and a case study of the Fort St. Joseph trading post in Michigan, this innovative work highlights the fur trade's role in the settlement of the continent and its impact, persisting even today, on social relations.

How did a mid-eighteenth-century group, the so-called Pennsylvania Germans, build their cultural identity in the face of ethnic stereotyping, nostalgic ideals, and the views imposed by outside contemporaries? Numerous forces create a group's identity, including the views of outsiders, insiders, and the shaping pressure of religious beliefs, but to understand the process better, we must look to clues from material culture. Cynthia Falk explores the relationship between ethnicity and the buildings, personal belongings, and other cultural artifacts of early Pennsylvania German immigrants and their descendants. Such material culture has been the basis of stereotyping Pennsylvania Germans almost since their arrival. Falk warns us against the typical scholarly overemphasis on Pennsylvania Germans' assimilation into an English way of life. Rather, she demonstrates that more than anything, socioeconomic status and religious affiliation influenced the character of the material culture of Pennsylvania Germans. Her work also shows how early Pennsylvania Germans defined their own identities.

With gracious residential boulevards, soaring cathedrals, and some of this country's first skyscrapers nestled amid bustling city blocks, St. Louis is home to buildings designed by some of America's best-known architects, including Cass Gilbert and Louis Sullivan. But no single architectural firm has shaped the style of the city known as the Gateway to the West more than Maritz & Young. Starting at the beginning of the twentieth century, Raymond E. Maritz and W. Ridgely Young built more than a hundred homes in the most affluent neighborhoods of St. Louis County, counting among their clientele a who's who of the city's most prominent citizens. The Architecture of Maritz & Young is the most complete collection of their work, featuring more than two hundred photographs, architectural drawings, and original floor plans of homes built in a variety of styles, from Spanish Eclectic to Tudor Revival. Alongside these historic images, Kevin Amsler and L. John Schott have provided descriptions of each residence detailing the original owners. Lovingly compiled from a multitude of historical sources and rare books, this is the definitive history of the domestic architecture that still defines St. Louis.

This first-ever guide shows researchers how to weave historical details into their genealogies to form a unique family history narrative.

Spanning the North Atlantic rim from Canada to Scotland, and from the Caribbean to the coast of West Africa, the British Atlantic world is deeply interconnected across its regions. In this groundbreaking study, thirteen leading scholars explore the idea of transatlanticism--or a shared "Atlantic world" experience--through the lens of architecture, built spaces, and landscapes in the British Atlantic from the seventeenth century through the mid-nineteenth century. Examining town planning, churches, forts, merchants' stores, state houses, and farm houses, this collection shows how the powerful visual language of architecture and design allowed the people of this era to maintain common cultural experiences across different landscapes while still forming their individuality. By studying the interplay between physical construction and social themes that include identity, gender, taste, domesticity, politics, and race, the authors interpret material culture in a way that particularly emphasizes the people who built, occupied, and used the spaces and reflects the complex cultural exchanges between Britain and the New World.

Every home has a story to tell! Whether you own an elaborate Victorian, cozy bungalow or cottage, ranch style, or are part of a newer subdivision, your house and property have a unique history that is just waiting to be uncovered. Part treasure hunt and part jigsaw puzzle, researching the history of your house is a fascinating and rewarding experience. InDiscovering the History of Your House and Your Neighborhood, author Betsy J. Green will show you how easy it is to create a cherished legacy for future generations to enjoy. You'll learn about: Beginning your search Finding and contacting former owners of your house Discovering the architect who designed your house Finding the original plans for your house Re-creating long-lost woodwork, porches, even historic landscaping Locating building permits for your house Finding the original price of your house Researching subdivisions and neighborhoods Finding deeds for your house and land Getting information from a deed Finding old photos of your house and neighborhood Using old maps to learn about your neighborhood Discovering your house on a postcard Using vintage architectural magazines Writing up your house history Includes a state-by-state guide to resources

Fashion has always been a cultivating force.  And during the 19th century--a time of great change--fashion was a powerful component in the development of American society.  Through dress, average individuals could step beyond class divisions and venture into the world of the elite and privileged.  Beginning in 1840, with the advent of the daguerreotype, that moment could be captured for a lifetime. In Dressed for the Photographer, Joan Severa gives a visual analysis of the dress of middle-class Americans from the mid-to-late 19th century.  Using images and writings, she shows how even economically disadvantaged Americans could wear styles within a year or so of current fashion.  This desire for fashion equality demonstrates that the possession of culture was more important than wealth or position in the community. Arranging the photographs by decades, Severa examines the material culture, expectations, and socioeconomic conditions that affected the clothing choices depicted.  Her depth of knowledge regarding apparel allows her to date the images with a high degree of accuracy and to point out significant details that would elude most observers.  The 272 photographs included in this volume show nearly the full range of stylistic details introduced during this period.  Each photograph is accompanied with a commentary in which these details are fully explored.  In presenting a broad overview of common fashion, Severa gathers letters and diaries as well as photographs from various sources across the United States.  She provides graphic evidence that ordinary Americans, when dressed in their finest attire, appeared very much the same as their wealthier neighbors.  But upon closer examination, these photographs often reveal inconsistencies that betray the actual economic status of the sitter. These fascinating photographs coupled with Severa's insights offer an added dimension to our understanding of 19th century Americans.  Intended as an aid in dating costumes and photographs and as a guide for period costume replication, Dressed for the Photographer provides extensive information for understanding the social history and material culture of this period.  It will be of interest to general readers as well as to social historians and those interested in fashion, costume, and material culture studies.

Writers will save hours of valuable research time and bring a richness and historical accuracy to their work as they reference the slice-of-life facts depicted for each of these major time periods. Each book contains descriptions of the period's food and clothes; customs and slang; occupations; common religious and political practices; and other historical details.

From the earliest colonial settlements to recent Cold War bunkers, the North American continent has been home to thousands of forts and fortress structures. Seacoast forts were the nation's primary means of strategic defense from the 1790s until World War II. Almost every seaport on both coasts had at least one fort to protect it at one time or another. Inland forts were built to defend against attacks by Native Americans, or to defend against the English, the French, or the Spanish. So many forts were built-most in the 1800s-that there are few places in the continental United States more than fifty miles from a fort location. Yet, despite their prominence and importance, there has never been-until now-a single volume devoted to American forts and homeland fortification defense.As in their previous and very successful books, experts J. E. and H. W. Kaufmann include never-before-published photographs, extraordinary drawings, cut-aways, and diagrams to illustrateFortress America .

Over 2,000 illustrations -- with descriptive captions -- of women's, children's and men's fashions, as well as kitchen appliances, books, china, furniture and other domestic items. Meticulously reprinted from rare original copy.

The study of material culture is concerned with the relationship between persons and things in the past and in the present, in urban and industrialized and in small-scale societies across the globe. The Handbook of Material Culture provides a critical survey of the theories, concepts, intellectual debates, substantive domains and traditions of study characterizing the analysis of things. It is cutting-edge: rather than simply reviewing the field as it currently exists. It also attempts to chart the future: the manner in which material culture studies may be extended and developed. The Handbook of Material Culture is divided into five sections. * Section I maps material culture studies as a theoretical and conceptual field. * Section II examines the relationship between material forms, the human body and the senses. * Section III focuses on subject-object relations. * Section IV considers things in terms of processes and transformations in terms of production, exchange and consumption, performance and the significance of things over the long-term. * Section V considers the contemporary politics and poetics of displaying, representing and conserving material and the manner in which this impacts on notions of heritage, tradition and identity. The Handbook charts an interdisciplinary field of studies that makes an unique and fundamental contribution to an understanding of what it means to be human. It will be of interest to all who work in the social and historical sciences, from anthropologists and archaeologists to human geographers to scholars working in heritage, design and cultural studies.

The fascinating story of a friendship, a lost tradition, and an incredible discovery, revealing how enslaved men and women made encoded quilts and then used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. In Hidden in Plain View, historian Jacqueline Tobin and scholar Raymond Dobard offer the first proof that certain quilt patterns, including a prominent one called the Charleston Code, were, in fact, essential tools for escape along the Underground Railroad. In 1993, historian Jacqueline Tobin met African American quilter Ozella Williams amid piles of beautiful handmade quilts in the Old Market Building of Charleston, South Carolina. With the admonition to "write this down," Williams began to describe how slaves made coded quilts and used them to navigate their escape on the Underground Railroad. But just as quickly as she started, Williams stopped, informing Tobin that she would learn the rest when she was "ready." During the three years it took for Williams's narrative to unfold-and as the friendship and trust between the two women grew-Tobin enlisted Raymond Dobard, Ph.D., an art history professor and well-known African American quilter, to help unravel the mystery. Part adventure and part history, Hidden in Plain View traces the origin of the Charleston Code from Africa to the Carolinas, from the low-country island Gullah peoples to free blacks living in the cities of the North, and shows how three people from completely different backgrounds pieced together one amazing American story. With a new afterword. Illlustrations and photographs throughout, including a full-color photo insert.

Join author M. Patrick Hendrix as he follows the tumultuous lives of the men who fought to control the most revered monuments to the war. In 1829, construction began on a fort atop a rock formation in the mouth of Charleston Harbor. Decades later, Fort Sumter was near completion on December 26, 1860, when Major Robert Anderson occupied it in response to the growing hostilities between the North and South. As a symbol of sedition for the North and holy ground for the South, possession of Fort Sumter was deemed essential to both sides when the Civil War began. By 1864, the fort, heavily bombarded by Union artillery, was a shapeless mass of ruins, mostly bermed rubble and sand with a garrison of Confederate soldiers holding its ground.

In The Lives in Objects, Jessica Yirush Stern presents a thoroughly researched and engaging study of the deerskin trade in the colonial Southeast, equally attentive to British American and Southeastern Indian cultures of production, distribution, and consumption. Stern upends the long-standing assertion that Native Americans were solely gift givers and the British were modern commercial capitalists. This traditional interpretation casts Native Americans as victims drawn into and made dependent on a transatlantic marketplace. Stern complicates that picture by showing how both the Southeastern Indian and British American actors mixed gift giving and commodity exchange in the deerskin trade, such that Southeastern Indians retained much greater agency as producers and consumers than the standard narrative allows. By tracking the debates about Indian trade regulation, Stern also reveals that the British were often not willing to embrace modern free market values. While she sheds new light on broader issues in native and colonial history, Stern also demonstrates that concepts of labor, commerce, and material culture were inextricably intertwined to present a fresh perspective on trade in the colonial Southeast.

Military Uniforms Visual Encyclopedia is a highly illustrated volume that examines all the significant uniforms of the world, featuring more than 1000 of the world's soldiers from the first professional armies to the present day. All the most famous types of uniform are featured, such as the British redcoat, the American GI, the German stormtrooper and the Soviet infantryman, along with some more unusual examples that are much less well known. Each featured uniform is illustrated with an excellent full-color artwork, showing the figure in great detail with full specifications tables that list country of origin and relevant points of interest in the uniform and equipment carried (with all weights and measures provided in both metric and imperial). With more than 1000 outstanding color artworks, Military Uniforms Visual Encyclopedia is a comprehensive and accessible reference work that will appeal to anyone with an interest in military matters.

Outlining the early history of the U.S paper industry, this book provides details on paper manufacturing from the early 1800s, when American paper was created almost entirely by hand out of cotton and other plant fibers, to the discovery of wood-pulp paper and the introduction of commercial-grade paper machines during the post-Civil War period. It discusses paper machine manufacturing, major U.S. mills, the papermaking traditions of Dutch and German immigrants, the politics of papermaking, and the eventual expansion of the paper industry from New England to the forests of the Northeast, Midwest, and Northwest. Two appendices provide a census listing of more than 1,100 U.S. paper mills, along with a directory of more than 1,300 mill owners and companies. The book contains around 70 illustrations and diagrams of major mills and relevant manufacturing technologies.

In this title, the genesis of Morse's invention is covered in detail, starting in 1832, along with the establishment of the first intercontinental telegraph line in the United States and the dramatic effect the device had on the Civil War.

In this abundantly illustrated volume, Bernard Herman provides a history of urban dwellings and the people who built and lived in them in early America. In the eighteenth century, cities were constant objects of idealization, often viewed as the outward manifestations of an organized, civil society. As the physical objects that composed the largest portion of urban settings, town houses contained and signified different aspects of city life, argues Herman. Taking a material culture approach, Herman examines urban domestic buildings from Charleston, South Carolina, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as those in English cities and towns, to better understand why people built the houses they did and how their homes informed everyday city life. Working with buildings and documentary sources as diverse as court cases and recipes, Herman interprets town houses as lived experience. Chapters consider an array of domestic spaces, including the merchant family's house, the servant's quarter, and the widow's dower. Herman demonstrates that city houses served as sites of power as well as complex and often conflicted artifacts mapping the everyday negotiations of social identity and the display of sociability.

Almost all of us have a tradesman or craftsman - a butcher, baker or candlestick maker - somewhere in our ancestry, and Adèle Emm's handbook is the perfect guide to finding out about them - about their lives, their work and the world they lived in. She introduces the many trades and crafts, looks at their practices and long traditions, and identifies and explains the many sources you can go to in order to discover more about them and their families. Chapters cover the guilds, the merchants, shopkeepers, builders, smiths and metalworkers, cordwainers and shoemakers, tailors and dressmakers, coopers, wheelwrights and carriage-makers, and a long list of other trades and crafts. The training and apprenticeships of individuals who worked in these trades and crafts are described, as are their skills and working conditions and the genealogical resources that preserve their history and give an insight into their lives. A chapter covers the general sources that researchers can turn to - the National Archives, the census, newspapers, wills, and websites - and gives advice on how to use them. Adèle Emm's introduction will be fascinating reading for anyone who is researching the social or family history of trades and crafts.

From Hitler's Wehrmacht of World War II to the Bundeswehr, the German Army uniform has changed greatly over the last seventy years. Through periods of glory, defeat and renaissance, the uniform has evolved. Prussian and Germanic traditions have remained strong throughout the uniform's history, and can still be found in the insignia and equipment of the present-day soldier. A provisional Reichswehr was formed in 1919, and, for the first time, the German Army had a common uniform for all the federal states of the Weimar Republic. With Adolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, the uniform began to take on the symbols of Nazi Germany, the eagle and swastika being added. Post-war Germany saw a divided nation with two distinct uniforms, and today we again see a common uniform for a united Germany. Uniforms of the German Soldier charts this fascinating evolution. With more than fifty color photographs and more than 400 black-and-white photographs, this book gives the reader an unparalleled visual record. Each photograph is accompanied with a detailed, authoritative caption.

Arthur Asa Berger, author of an array of texts in communication, popular culture, and social theory, is back with the second edition of his popular, user-friendly guide for students who want to understand the social meanings of objects. In this broadly interdisciplinary text, Berger takes the reader through half a dozen theoretical models that are commonly used to analyze objects. He then describes and analyzes eleven objects, many of them new to this edition--including smartphones, Facebook, hair dye, and the American flag--showing how they demonstrate concepts like globalization, identity, and nationalism. The book includes a series of exercises that allow students to analyse objects in their own environment. Brief and inexpensive, this introductory guide will be used in courses ranging from anthropology to art history, pop culture to psychology.

A unique document authenticating fashions popular across America in the World War I era, with hundreds of beautifully detailed drawings and fully descriptive captions illustrating women's apparel. Styles include afternoon and evening dresses, lingerie, corsets, hosiery and shoes, plus children's fashions — from toddlers to teenagers — for every occasion. 716 black-and-white illustrations.