Engendering African American Archaeology

A Southern Perspective

Jillian E. Galle

• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9798895272510
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

"A welcome publication, this book will nicely supplement the other books that are now appearing in the field of African American archaeology."—Charles E. Orser Jr., Illinois State University

Over the last decade, the field of American historical archaeology has seen enormous growth in the study of people of African descent. This edited volume is the first dedicated solely to archaeology and the construction of gender in an African American context. The common thread running through this collection is not a shared definition of gender or an agreed-upon feminist approach, but rather a regional thread, a commitment to understanding ethnicity and gender within the social, political, and ideological structures of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American South.

Taken together, these essays represent a departure in historical archaeology, an important foray into the study of the construction of gender within various African American communities that is based in the archaeological record. Those interested in historical archaeology, history, women's studies and African American studies will find this a valuable addition to the literature. Topics range from gendered residential and consumption patterns in colonial Virginia and the construction of identity in Middle Tennessee to midwifery practices in postbellum Louisiana. Contributors to this volume include Melanie Cabak, Marie Danforth, Garrett Fesler, Jillian Galle, Barbara Heath, Larry McKee, Patricia Samford, Elizabeth Scott, Brian Thomas, Larissa Thomas, Laura Wilkie, Kristin Wilson, and Amy Young.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Gender Research in African American Archaeology
• 1. Engendering Choice: Slavery and Consumerism in Central Virginia
• 2. Designing Women: Measuring Acquisition and Access at the Hermitage Plantation
• 3. Granny Midwives: Gender and Generational Mediators of the African American Community
• 4. Gender and the Presentation of Self: An Example from the Hermitage
• 5. Risk and Women’s Roles in the Slave Family: Data from Oxmoor and Locust Grove Plantations in Kentucky
• 6. Engendering Enslaved Communities on Virginia’s and North Carolina’s Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Plantations
• 7. Living Arrangements among Enslaved Women and Men at an Early-Eighteenth-Century Virginia Quartering Site
• 8. African American Men, Women, and Children in Nineteenth-Century Natchez, Mississippi: An Analysis of the City Cemetery Sexton’s Records
• 9. Feminine Voices from beyond the Grave: What Burials Can Tell Us about Gender Differences among Historic African Americans
• Epilogue: An End to the Eerie Silence
• Selected Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index