Material Culture

Here you can find more information about Material Culture Studies, including recommended books, websites for other courses in the Material Culture Series in the Department of American Civilization at Brown University, and other Material Culture Studies courses at other universities. Other Material Culture Studies Courses in This Series: Fall 2000: AC0125a: Houses, Their Furnishings, and Their Meaning in Early America Fall 2001: AC0125b: Gravestones and Burying Grounds Fall 2002: AC0125c: American Folk Art Fall 2003: AC0125d: The Neoclassical Ideal in Early America Other Courses at Other Universities: Speaking Stones: Gravestones and Funerary Architecture in Mt. Hope Cemetery,Rochester, NY Material Culture Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison Other Sites of Interest: Chipstone Foundation This foundation was established by Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin to make their imoressive personal collection of early American furniture, pottery, prints, and other decorative arts, available for study by the academic community. Currently affiliated with the Material Culture Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin, the Chipstone Foundation has created this website in the hopes that it will help to further scholarly discussion of American decorative arts. Martha Ballard's Diary Online "DoHistory invites you to explore the process of piecing together the lives of ordinary people in the past. It is an experimental, interactive case study based on the research that went into the book and film A Midwife's Tale, which were both based upon the remarkable 200 year old diary of midwife/healer Martha Ballard. Although DoHistory is centered on the life of Martha Ballard, you can learn basic skills and techniques for interpreting fragments that survive from any period in history. We hope that many people will be inspired by Martha Ballard's story to do original research on other "ordinary" people from the past." Common Place "Common-place is a common place for exploring and exchanging ideas about early American history and culture. A bit friendlier than a scholarly journal, a bit more scholarly than a popular magazine, Common-place speaks--and listens--to scholars, museum curators, teachers, hobbyists, and just about anyone interested in American history before 1900. Common-place is a common place for all sorts of people to read about all sorts of things relating to early American life--from architecture to literature, from politics to parlor manners. And it's a place to find insightful analysis of early American history as it is discussed not only in scholarly literature but also on the evening news; in museums, big and small; in documentary and dramatic films; and in popular culture." Winterthur Portfolio **Access For Subscribers Only** (Brown students can access this resource through JOSIAH) "Published since 1964, Winterthur Portfolio is an interdisciplinary journal committed to fostering knowledge of the American past by publishing articles on the arts in America and the historical context within which they developed. Arts is used in its broadest sense to include all the products of human ingenuity that satisfy functional, aesthetic, or symbolic needs. Preference is given to articles that are analytical rather than descriptive and to studies that integrate artifacts into their cultural framework. "To encourage the application of new methods of investigation or analysis as well as new interpretations, contributions are invited from such diverse fields as art history, architectural history, decorative arts, material culture, American studies, literature, folk studies, cultural geography, ethnology, anthropology, archaeology, and social, economic, technological, and intellectual history. The range of acceptable subjects is suggested by, but not limited to, the following: artists and artisans, architecture and l andscape design, technology and trade, fashion and folkways, style and taste, customs and habits, manners and rituals-all relating to how people make and use objects to create or sustain environments." Recommended Reading In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life by James Deetz The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich Material Life in America, 1600-1860 by Robert Blair St. George Art as Evidence: Writings on Art and Material Culture by Jules David Prown American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture edited by Jules David Prown and Kenneth Haltman Flowerdew Hundred: The Archaeology of a Virginia Plantation, 1619-1864 by James Deetz Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650–1800 by Leland Ferguson Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay