The Archaeology of Institutional Life

Description

Institutions pervade social life. They express community goals and values by defining the limits of socially acceptable behavior. Institutions are often vested with the resources, authority, and power to enforce the orthodoxy of their time. But institutions are also arenas in which both orthodoxies and authority can be contested. Between power and opposition lies the individual experience of the institutionalized. Whether in a boarding school, hospital, prison, almshouse, commune, or asylum, their experiences can reflect the positive impact of an institution or its greatest failings. This interplay of orthodoxy, authority, opposition, and individual experience are all expressed in the materiality of institutions and are eminently subject to archaeological investigation. A few archaeological and historical publications, in widely scattered venues, have examined individual institutional sites. Each work focused on the development of a specific establishment within its narrowly defined historical context; e.g., a fort and its role in a particular war, a schoolhouse viewed in terms of the educational history of its region, an asylum or prison seen as an expression of the prevailing attitudes toward the mentally ill and sociopaths. In contrast, this volume brings together twelve contributors whose research on a broad range of social institutions taken in tandem now illuminates the experience of these institutions. Rather than a culmination of research on institutions, it is a landmark work that will instigate vigorous and wide-ranging discussions on institutions in Western life, and the power of material culture to both enforce and negate cultural norms. Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1. Introduction - James G. Gibb 2. Historical Overview of the Archaeology of Institutional Life - Sherene Baugher I. METHOD AND THEORY 3. On the Enigma of Incarceration: Philosophical Approaches to Confinement in the Modern Era - Eleanor Conlin Casella 4. Feminist Theory and the Historical Archaeology of Institutions - Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood 5. Constructing Institution-Specific Site Formation Models - April M. Beisaw II. INSTITUTIONS OF EDUCATION 6. Rural Education and Community Social Relations: Historical Archaeology of the Wea View Schoolhouse No. 8, Wabash Township, Tippecanoe County, Indiana - Deborah L. Rotman 7. Individual Struggles and Institutional Goals: Small Voices from the Phoenix Indian School Track Site - Owen Lindauer III. INSTITUTIONS OF COMMUNALITY 8. The Orphanage at Schulyer Mansion - Lois M. Feister 9. A Feminist Approach to European Ideologies of Poverty and the Institutionalization of the Poor in Falmouth, Massachusetts - Suzanne M. Spencer-Wood 10. Ideology, Idealism, and Reality: Investigating the Ephrata Commune - Stephen G. Warfel IV. INSTITUTIONS OF INCARCERATION 11. Maintaining or Mixing Southern Culture in a Northern Prison: Johnson’s Island Military Prison - David R. Bush 12. Written on the Walls: Inmate Graffiti within Places of Confinement - Eleanor Conlin Casella 13. John Conolly’s “Ideal” Asylum and Provisions for the Insane in Nineteenth-Century South Australia and Tasmania - Susan Piddock 14. The Future of the Archaeology of Institutions - Lu Ann De Cunzo References Cited Contributors Index