How Americans remember the past is often reinforced by landscapes, monuments, commemorative ceremonies, and archaeology. These features and activities often help to create an official public memory that becomes part of a group's heritage. I suggest that public memory can be established by (1) forgetting about or excluding an alternative past, (2) creating and reinforcing patriotism, and/or (3) developing a sense of nostalgia to legitimize a particular heritage. These categories are not mutually exclusive, and the lines that separate these categories may not always be well defined. I show how post–Civil War American landscapes, monuments, and commemorative activities helped to reinforce racist attitudes in the United States that became part of the official memory. African Americans have struggled to revise the official memory of the Civil War, although the power to change this memory has been situational and not always successful, [commemoration, memory, material culture, historical archaeology, landscapes]

No abstract

No abstract

In the United States, industrial management techniques shifted from strong paternalistic controls to absentee forms of ownership in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tracing the change of industrial management techniques in a mill community that survived through the Gilded Age shows the impact of industrialization on consumerism and health in working‐class households. Initial examination of the archaeological record shows that the domestic material world of workers' households became similar to each other while consumer goods increased significantly. We suggest that with the transition of management techniques from minimal paternalism to absenteeism, a trend developed toward homogenization of some everyday material culture. However, living in a marginal geography promoted a countertrend among workers and their families, and alternatives to market‐oriented consumption allowed for “insurgent” forms of citizenship. Understanding the historical consequences of industry for workers and their families is relevant for understanding the situation of marginalized labor today.

No abstract