Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: A Diachronic Investigation of Farmstead Labor Relations

本研究的一个中心目标是了解在地方尺度上影响雇主和雇员之间互动的机制。这项建议的重点是小规模家庭一级的做法。因为考古学有可能在一个可控的背景下研究这种关系的发展，而且往往跨越几个世纪，它可以提供一个独特的视角。在Mark Hauser博士的指导下，Bradley Phillippi将研究在17世纪和18世纪北美东北部农村，不断变化的劳资关系如何改变了生活在多元社区中的不同人群的日常生活。菲利普将在汤普森之家（Thompson House）进行一季的考古发掘工作。汤普森之家位于纽约州萨福克县长岛北岸，是一座多人居住的农庄。汤普森家族（约1700-1885年）连续五代人居住在这里。与汤普森一家一起生活和劳动的是奴隶，1827年后，非洲裔的自由劳工。汤普森的房子特别有趣，因为它提供了在单一地点分析和比较奴隶制和自由背景的机会。菲利普将使用考古和空间方法来恢复宏观和微观文物，以及土壤化学和微观形态数据，以确定使向雇佣劳动过渡成为可能的日常实践。人们普遍认为，从1780年左右开始，工薪阶层开始取代东北农村农场家庭成员和奴隶之间占主导地位的劳动分工；然而，对于劳动关系的这种转变如何改变了农民和劳动者的日常生活并促成了新兴身份的形成，人们知之甚少。绘制空间、家庭生产和消费实践在向自由劳动过渡前后的变化，对于理解劳动关系变化的社会影响至关重要。虽然该项目侧重于一个特定的地点，但如何在不断变化的社会条件下保持地位差异的基本原则触及了社会组织的一个基本方面，并与当今世界有关。这项特殊研究的优势在于，它允许在相当长的一段时间内跟踪这个过程。该项目将通过评估宏观和微观人工制品的频率和分布以及来自住宅院子不同职业层的化学特征来记录家庭活动的空间和时间模式。为了描述消费的各个方面，除了陶瓷和动物遗骸外，该项目还将分析玻璃器皿、餐具、厨房用具、建筑和家具硬件、个人装饰和卫生用品。最后，为了描绘这栋房子的建筑和空间历史，菲利普将使用档案文件和微地层分析。将这些数据合并到一个地理信息系统中，将提供一个更完整的、历时性的画面，以反映多个农场不断变化的日常活动。通过强调空间和劳动，该项目将推进多元遗址和社区考古的方法和理论，这是一项有价值的努力，它强烈依赖于孤立的空间和物体，对生活在那里的不同人群做出有意义的陈述。这样做，这个项目将扩大对非裔美国人经历的理解，这是一种多样化的经历，在考古学中被南方种植园的奴隶生活所掩盖。结果还将通过为文化历史描述提供实践和日常生活的元素，扩大对东北农村生活的认识。此外，这个项目将是考古学家和当地后裔社区之间更大合作努力的一部分，他们都致力于创造一个更广泛和更深入的意识，了解社区对当地历史的贡献的文化和历史遗产。该项目的结果将在同行评审的出版物和专业会议上传播，而原始数据将在数字考古记录上提供。菲利普的研究也将在汤普森故居博物馆（Thompson House Museum）永久展出。该项目将以田野学校的形式教授本科生人类学家考古发掘的基础知识，从而促进对他们的培训，并将在菲利普先生的博士论文中达到高潮。

A central goal of this research is to understand the mechanisms which, on a local scale, affect interaction between employers and employees. The focus in this proposal is on small-scale family level practices. Because archaeology has the potential to examine the development of such relations within a controlled context and often across centuries it can provide a unique perspective. Under the direction of Dr. Mark Hauser, Bradley Phillippi will examine how changing labor relations altered the everyday lives of diverse people living in a plural community in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rural Northeast North America. Mr. Phillippi will undertake one season of archaeological excavations at the Thompson House, a plural farmstead on the North Shore of Long Island in Suffolk County, New York. The site was occupied continuously by five generations of the Thompson family (ca 1700-1885). Living and laboring alongside the Thompsons were enslaved, and after 1827, free laborers of African descent. The Thompson house is of particular interest because it provides the opportunity to analyze and compare contexts of slavery and freedom on a single site. Mr. Phillippi will use archaeological and spatial methods to recover macro and micro artifacts, as well as soil chemical and micromorphological data, to identify the daily practices that made the transition to wage labor possible. It is widely accepted that, initiating around 1780, wage earners began replacing the dominant division of labor between family members and slaves on rural farmsteads in the Northeast; however, little is known about how this transition in labor relations altered farmers' and laborers' everyday life and contributed to emerging identities. Mapping changes in space, household production, and practices of consumption before and after the transition to free labor is essential to understanding the social implications of changing labor relations. Although this project focuses on one specific site, the underlying principle of how status differences are maintained in changing social conditions strikes at a fundamental aspect of social organization and has relevance in today's world. The advantage of this particular study is that it allows the process to be followed over a significant period of time.This project will document spatial and temporal patterns of household activities by assessing the frequency and distribution of macro and micro artifacts and chemical signatures from different occupation layers of the house yard. To characterize every aspect of consumption, this project will analyze glassware, cutlery, kitchen utensils, construction and furniture hardware, and items of personal adornment and hygiene, in addition to ceramics and faunal remains. Finally, to map the architectural and spatial history of the house, Mr. Phillippi will use archival documents and microstratigraphic analyses. Combining these data into a GIS will provide a more complete and diachronic picture of changing daily practices at the plural farmstead.By emphasizing space and labor, this project will advance methods and theory in the archaeology of plural sites and communities, a worthy endeavor that relies strongly on isolated spaces and objects to make meaningful statements about the diverse people who lived there. In so doing, this project will broaden the understanding of the African American experience, a diverse experience that in archaeology is obscured by an emphasis on slave life on Southern plantations. The results will also expand knowledge of rural life in the Northeast by contributing an element of practice and everyday life to cultural historical descriptions. In addition, this project will be part of a larger collaborative effort between archaeologists and the local descendent community, both of whom are dedicated to creating a broader and deeper awareness of the cultural and historical legacy of the community's contributions to local history. The results from this project will be disseminated in peer-reviewed publications and at professional conferences, while the raw data will be made available on The Digital Archaeological Record. Mr. Phillippi's research will also be displayed in a permanent exhibit at the Thompson House Museum. This project will advance the training of undergraduate-student anthropologists by teaching them the basics of archaeological excavations in a field-school format and will culminate in Mr. Phillippi's PhD dissertation.