Perceiving Class Relations through Material Culture: Three Households from
Kentucky
By
Nancy O’Malley
W.S. Webb Museum of Anthropology
University of Kentucky, Lexington
“Material culture plays an active role …as the symbols that people use to support or
reject specific ideologies. Thus, for archaeologists the goal is to understand how people
manipulated the meanings of artifacts as part and parcel of the negotiation of class
relations.” (Wurst and Fitts 1999:3)
“To be a fully accepted member of a social class, a person must display the appropriate
symbols in their speech, mannerisms, and material goods. ..Approaching class as a
symbolic system elucidates that the members of separate classes view material culture
differently and occasionally attach different meanings to identical objects and
behaviors.” (Fitts 1999:40)
In the interests of putting my theoretical cards on the table from the outset,
let me state that I consider class as an aspect of social identity. Moreover, social
identity to me is defined by the relationships that people have to one another and
the contexts in which these relationships exist. These relationships are necessarily
influenced by one’s sex, race, economic standing, and social status. As indicated by
the opening quotations, material culture analysis represents a means by which
archaeologists can tease out symbolic meaning attached to things as it relates to the
way people express their class position. My approach in this paper is informed by
the “contextual archaeology” perspective that seeks to provide “an animated,
interesting picture of how real men and women once lived in the world” (Orser
2001:627). This contextual approach examines how artifacts “come to do social
‘work’, how they come to be invested with meaning” (Praetzellis and Praetzellis
2001: 645). Beaudry, Cook and Mrozowski’s (1996) article on the artifact as text
and symbol and their view that documentary analysis is integral to the study of
material culture and vital for constructing context expresses my own perspective
more eloquently than I can hope to. Lou Ann Wurst’s (1999: 8) characterization of
class as internal relations “where the web of social relations makes up the whole,
and the appearance of these relations are taken to be its parts” informed and
influenced my analysis considerably. My analysis is purposely small scale,
examining assemblages generated by single families living at particular times and
places. While I acknowledge the Marxist definition of class and the very interesting
analyses that stem from it, I do not invoke it here, partly because the assemblages I
am using do not lend themselves to such an analysis and partly because I am
viewing class as “a culturally and historically constructed identity” rather than “an
objectively defined object in the world” (Ortner 1998:3).
The assemblages I use in this paper are from three families living in Kentucky
from the late eighteenth century to the first quarter of the twentieth century, each
under very different circumstances. Hugh McGary brought his blended family to
Kentucky in 1775 and settled at a defensible residential station in present day
Mercer County for nine dangerous years of Indian attack, periodic deprivation,
economic uncertainty and political upheaval. In the 1840s with permission granted
by the parish priest, widow Mary Cassell built a house in Lexington, Kentucky on the
corner of the Catholic cemetery where she lived with her daughter, son-in-law,
grandson and two young slave children until she died in the early 1860s. Former
slaves William and Emily Hummons moved to Lexington after the Civil War, built a
house, and set about establishing a life as free people in a new social order. Each
family had unique attributes that positioned them within the society in which they
lived and influenced their relationships with their fellow citizens and their
community.
Each of the assemblages were deposited at different times in history. Two of
the assemblages occurred in the same city while the other assemblage was in a rural
locality. All of the assemblages were analyzed at the household level. Being able to
analyze artifact assemblages that represent the discarded possessions of people
whose names, and occupations you know and for whom you can often learn a
considerable amount of detail is an enviable position to be in as an analyst.
However, generalizing to larger issues of class relations remains a challenge
precisely because of the variation in meaning attached to identical artifacts by
different classes.
We can, however, identify the types of relationships that each household
experienced and search for possible material culture indicators of the classes these
relationships suggest. The types of relationships experienced by the three
households have commonalities and differences. In all three cases, each household
experienced relationships at the familial level—for example, husband-wife, parentchild, or sibling-sibling. At the household level, the relationship between slaveowner
and slave introduces a particular dynamic for two of the families. Other
relationships that can be identified are those with one’s peers (people who are
considered socially “equal” by various measures), one’s “betters” (people to whom
one defers, willingly or unwillingly) and those of lesser social standing. These
relationships are close up and personal, experienced frequently and require
continuous adjustment in behavior, much of which may be essentially unconscious.
At a broader social level, relationships may be recognized between individuals and
institutions or a body of laws that regulate behavior.
Archaeological assemblages associated with the three subject families are
well suited to such a study. The McGary assemblage dates between 1779 and 1788.
It is a tightly dated collection of artifacts that reflect life on the western frontier
during the Revolutionary War and immediately after, a time and place of
undeveloped local mercantile networks, hazardous living conditions, and a society
in flux. Documentary sources for the McGary family include land grant records,
county court order books, interviews of people who knew or knew of the family, and
family genealogy, all bolstered by other documentary sources relevant to the time
period and to Kentucky.
The Cassell assemblage dates squarely within the antebellum period,
covering 20+ years of urban living in a city of the upland south, at a time when
Victorianism and the “cult of domesticity” was developing. Perhaps more
importantly, the Cassell assemblage dates to the period when the so-called “middle
class” was developing as society experienced the growth of new industries,
businesses and professions. Historic maps, city directories and census records
comprised the bulk of the documentary evidence relating to the family.
The Hummons assemblage represents the postbellum period in the same
city, a time of often perilous experience for a freed slave family. In the midst of a
chaotic social setting, African-Americans struggled to obtain equal rights with
whites but encountered many obstacles, such as segregated shopping venues,
economic restrictions that made wealth accumulation difficult, and racist attitudes
that hampered social advancement. Documentary sources for the family include
their deed records, mortgages, an interview with a family descendant, census
returns, historic maps, newspaper mentions, and marriage records, which are
augmented by extensive research on the neighborhood in which they lived.
The McGary Family
Hugh McGary brought his family to Kentucky in the spring of 1775 as
members of a party of settlers led by Daniel Boone. The family was a blended one,
comprised of Hugh, aged 31, his wife Mary Buntin Ray McGary, aged 40, her three
sons by her first husband, James (aged 14), William (aged 12) and John (aged 10), as
well as her children by Hugh, Robert (aged 8), Daniel (aged 4) and Mary Ann (aged
1). They travelled in a large party of settlers, some well known to them as either
relatives or friends, others perhaps less familiar. There may have been slaves in the
party as well as Hugh McGary is recorded as a slaveowner in later records. They
brought with them a substantial amount of livestock, including 40 horses by one
account. Parting company from Boone and others who headed to Fort
Boonesborough in present day Madison County, the McGarys and at least two other
families set out for the James Harrod Boiling Spring settlement in present day Boyle
County, Kentucky. At this point, the party experienced an all-too- familiar
predicament—they became lost. Leaving the older boys at the mouth of Gilbert’s
Creek with the livestock, the rest of the party pushed forward to find their
destination, promising to return in a few days. The time stretched to two weeks
before McGary could retrieve the boys and the livestock. This incident underscores a
common condition of the frontier: settlers were in unfamiliar territory with only
oral instructions and perhaps a few crudely drawn maps to guide them. They
eventually settled at the site of Fort Harrod in present Mercer County, Kentucky, on
September 8, 1775, some five months after the Revolutionary War began.
Numerous families congregating at defensible forts or stations was standard
procedure for Kentucky settlers during the war; this communal style of living
provided safety in numbers and sanctuary for incoming settlers prior to the
establishment of their own farms. The classic design of forts and stations was an
enclosure of log cabins forming a square or rectangle and connected by sections of
log stockade. Forts differed from station in scale, being usually larger, and housing
settlers who often were strangers to one another and came from diverse
backgrounds. Stations were generally headed by the man who claimed the land on
which it stood and its inhabitants were often friends and relatives. Some form of
defensibility was usually incorporated into the construction although it might not
have taken the form of a stockade.
Forts and stations served an important purpose as sanctuaries and
defensible sites from external enemies during wartime. However, the crowded and
unhygienic conditions of these enclosed defensive residences also exposed class
differences and conflicts. Far from being a homogeneous population, settlers came
from all walks of life and economic circumstances. Ethnic differences were readily
noticed and judged; for instance, settlers of German origin were frequently
described as poor hunters, stolid and single minded in their work habits and set
apart by language barriers. Irish settlers were referred to as rowdy and prone to
drink. Even settlers from different parts of the colonies were set apart by their
dress, values, and habits; the term “cohee” was used to identify settlers who lived
west of the Blue Ridge while a “tuckahoe” inhabited the lowlands of Virginia. Not
only could a person “tell where a man was from, on first seeing him,” the encounters
were sometimes hostile (Perkins 1998:85).
Hugh McGary established his station in 1779 at Shawnee Springs where it
was home to his immediate family, the Patrick Jordan family who stayed for five
years and one or two other families who stayed for a few months until they could
establish stations on their own land. Single young men serving as scouts in the local
militia were periodically assigned to the station to help protect it. Slaves may also
have lived at the station at various times. The social strife associated with living in
forts or large stations among strangers was largely absent at McGary’s station but
the social dynamics taking place here were complex, nevertheless. During the nine
years that the McGary family lived at the site, Mary McGary died and Hugh
remarried, the older children grew to adulthood and at least one of the sons married
twice and had two children before leaving the station for his own farm in 1787.
Hugh’s second wife bore two or three children while at the station. The site was
abandoned in 1788 when McGary sold the land and moved elsewhere. The site
assemblage, therefore, represents to a large extent, the belongings of the McGary
family.
Compared to the later assemblages considered in this paper, the McGary
assemblage has lower frequencies and lesser diversity of artifacts. Settlers were
limited in the amount of household goods that they could bring into the frontier.
Traveling along the Wilderness Road limited loads to those that could be borne by
human or animal power. Flatboat travel down the Ohio River allowed for the
transport of more goods but, having disembarked at one of several landings, the trip
inland to the area of earliest settlement posed the same logistical problems.
Nevertheless, over time, enterprising businessmen devised ways to bring in goods
of various kinds and families that could afford them could add to their household
assemblages. Mobility in the form of horses also conferred an advantage to those
who owned them since they could make periodic trips back east. McGary was
particularly well travelled. He was sent to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg, Pennsylvania) in
1777, travelled to Natchez more than once and made frequent trips to Harrodsburg
and Logan’s Station (present day Stanford, Kentucky) in addition to his travels
associated with militia raids against various tribes (Hammersmith 2000:129-131).
Any of these travels could have been a means by which the family acquired
manufactured goods.
An important distinction that relates to Hugh McGary’s class standing is his
status as a landowner.The earlier a settler arrived, the better situated he was to
acquire high quality land. Hugh McGary’s early arrival conferred a great advantage
that he did not hesitate to exercise. He immediately began looking for land, settling
on a prime piece of real estate about four miles from Fort Harrod at a spectacular
system of freshwater springs known as Shawnee Springs. There he claimed 575
acres at a land court held at Fort Harrod on October 27, 1779. He also was
successful in claiming other land in the area, some of which he kept for himself and
some he assigned to other settlers. All told, he acquired a total of 3,626.5 acres of
which he assigned (for a fee) 800 acres to other men. Although it took several years
to finalize the title, he had control of a large quantity of land at an earlier date whose
title was never challenged. In addition, he was a slaveowner and trader, he held
high rank in the county militia, and he occupied a seat on the county court. All these
attributes combined to place him in a relatively high class in frontier society in
which he could potentially influence local politics, profit economically and take his
place as a leader. His position among the settler elite also led to conflict with other
settlers who had failed to acquire land and so were politically aligned with factions
that opposed land policies practiced by Virginia, and approbation by those who held
antislavery sentiments. His military rank also placed him in oppositional situations
with soldiers of lesser rank and fellow officers who disagreed with his strategies in
battle. On a personal level, Hugh McGary was sometimes impetuous, sensitive to
criticism, and tempermental, leading to several recorded occasions where he was
the catalyst for poorly conceived military strategies, physical altercations with other
settlers, or other interpersonal disagreements. These behavioral traits eventually
undercut his social standing but, for the period covered by his station occupation, he
filled a leadership role as a junior officer in the militia and a member of the local
county court, and was more prosperous than many other settlers.
The McGary assemblage includes material evidence of document boxes (a
padlock, key, decorative faceplates and a bat-wing style keyhole escutcheon) in
which land grant records, money (represented by a “piece of eight”, a Spanish reale
cut to 1/8 its original size), and other valuables were kept. Document boxes were
the safes of their time; ownership of document boxes suggests the need to keep
valuable portable property under lock and key.
The McGary assemblage includes items such as English manufactured dishes,
jewelry, buttons and other things that had to be purchased and were not made
locally. Unlike settlers like young William Clinkenbeard who said, “My wife and I had
neither spoon, dish, knife or anything to do with when we first began [married] life,
only I had a butcher knife” (Beckner 1928), the McGary family had numerous eating
implements, English refined ceramics in many different patterns, and a small
quantity of Oriental porcelain. They may have been eating venison and other wild
meats, foraging for wild edible plants and suffering periodic food shortages as
virtually all settlers did, but when they did eat, they could serve their food on stylish
dishes.
Moreover, their clothing was embellished with buttons that had decorative
designs rather than simply being plain and they owned jewelry such as fingerings
and pins. Clothing was one of the ways that settlers placed others socially, as were
language and manners (Perkins 1998:86). Perkins (1998:86) describes the
experience of Mary Dewees who travelled to Kentucky from Philadelphia in 1788.
Staying at a rough tavern, she discovered that “by our dress or Adress or perhaps
boath [we] were favoured with a bed” while other less genteel guests slept on a dirt
floor.
Combined with archival evidence of McGary’s land and slave holdings,
political appointments, military rank, and other indicators, his status and that of his
family falls within a class that might be termed “landed gentry.” Material culture
indicators that may be indicative of class include clothing items, patterned ceramic
tableware, artifacts related to the storage of valuable portable property, and
coinage. However, artifacts in a frontier context cannot stand alone in
reconstructing class relationships. Archival evidence is necessary to corroborate
class identity. Comparative assemblages from similar sites in the same time period
are unfortunately unavailable for Kentucky but the McGary assemblage offers the
promise of interesting associations between class position and artifact traits.
Mary Cassell and her family
According to the 1838 Directory of Lexington, Kentucky, Mrs. Mary Cassell
was living on the corner of Spring and West High Streets. The identity of her
husband has not been determined despite extensive archival research. She may
have been a widow and appeared in the Directory because she was the head of her
household. Her listing in the directory is intriguing. Her marital status is suggested
by the use of the term “Mrs.” but her widowhood is implied by the absence of a man
with the same surname living at the same address.
A review of the other female names listed in the 1839 directory reveals some
interesting patterns. Free women of color were nearly always listed by their first
and last names without any title such as Miss or Mrs. and they were always listed
with an occupation. White women were nearly always listed with their title, Mrs. or
Miss, but inconsistently with either their first and last name or just the initials of
their first name and their surname.
Occupations were more frequently omitted than listed for white women. Of
the 125 women listed in the directory, 68 white women were without occupation,
compared to 41 white and 16 black women. No woman of color lacked an
occupation. The occupations listed also cast light on the restrictions placed on
women who had to make their own living (Table 1)
Table 1. Female Occupations in the 1838-1839 Lexington Directory.
Occupation
White women
Black women
Dress maker
8
0
Tailoress
6
0
Seamstress
3
1
Milliner/hat trimmer
4
0
Laundress
0
13
Boardinghouse keeper
10
0
School mistress
2
0
Music teacher
1
0
Grocer
2
0
Morocco manufacturer
1
0
Shoe binder
0
1
Boot and shoe trimmer
1
0
Fancy store proprietor
1
0
Weaver
0
1
Cart proprietor
1
0
Mattress maker
1
0
The 1840 Census lists a ”Mrs. M.A. Casswell” who was head of a household
containing six other females ranging in age from less than 5 to as old as 50 years. Of
the seven, six were working in manufactures and trades (including, apparently, a
child between 5 and 10 years of age, if the census is correct). Mrs. Cassell’s
residency in a household comprised entirely of females, most of whom were
working for a living, suggests that her financial position was precarious after her
husband died, perhaps necessitating a boarding house arrangement. Moreover, she
is listed in the 1840 census as head of household with no male present.
Mrs. Cassell’s social position as represented by the 1838-39 directory and
1840 U.S. Census is ambivalent. If she was boarding the females who were living
with her, why was that occupation not indicated in the directory as it was for other
women (assuming her situation was the same in 1838-1839 as it was in 1840)? A
search for repetitious listings for Mrs. Cassell’s address in the directory did not
identify any of the females who were living with her at that address in the 1840
census. Nor were the trades in which the women were employed determined. While
the precise circumstances of Mrs. Cassell’s living situation and status cannot be
surmised with certainty, one interpretation of the evidence suggests that being a
widow in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly if your deceased husband had not
been a wealthy man who could leave a wife in financial comfort, was an ambiguous
social position. Financial constraints undoubtedly had an impact on one’s ability to
acquire material goods that conveyed class position based on economic standing but
social standing recognized by one’s “respectability” and adherence to certain social
customs may have allowed a higher class status than might otherwise be obvious.
Another possibility that might explain Mrs. Cassell’s occupation is not
capable of proof with available evidence but deserves mention. A house full of
women all working without evidence of husbands might have been a brothel. The
difficulty with this interpretation is the fact that Mrs. Cassell received permission
from the local parish priest to build a house on the Catholic cemetery lot in the
1840s. Given the church’s and society’s stance against prostitution, it seems unlikely
that a priest would allow a prostitute to build a house on church property even if
she had reformed.
A quit claim deed filed in 1857 between Mary Ann Cassell and the Catholic
Church provides further clarification. Mrs. Cassell identified herself as a widow and
acknowledged that the Pastor of St. Peters Church, Rev. E. McMahon, “in
consideration of his desire to do me an act of kindness”, allowed her to enclose and
build a house on part of the church’s cemetery lot and live there during her lifetime,
thus saving her the expense of buying land. The deed was filed many years after the
agrrangement was made in order to formally affirm the church’s legal title to the lot
on which Mrs. Cassell built her house. The assemblage considered in this paper was
excavated at this house.
She was residing here in 1850 with her son-in-law,
Lucullus Lawes, a coachmaker who was probably the breadwinner of the family, her
daughter, Mary L. Lawes, a 4-year-old girl named Mary Hulls of unknown
relationship and two slave children. Mrs. Cassell was not listed with an occupation
but she was listed as head of household over her son in law. She declared a real
estate value of $350.00 which represented the value of her house. Ten years later,
she was listed as a dependent in her son in law’s household, a reversal that may
have been a result of her advanced age. She also no longer owned slaves by 1860.
Mrs. Cassell’s assemblage reflects her urban location, close to many
mercantile outlets that offered an abundance of manufactured goods. Although
undecorated ceramics are the most numerous category, the assemblage also
includes several dozen handpainted and transferprinted patterns, most of which
were likely imported from England. A small quantity of Oriental Export porcelain is
also present. While pattern diversity is relatively high in the Cassell assemblage,
vessel form diversity is relatively low. The ceramic assemblage suggests that
purchases were made more often by the piece or in limited numbers of a single form
such as plates or cups rather than sets with numerous vessel forms. Likewise, the
glass tableware included some pressed patterns but was not elaborate. Clothing
parts such as jet buttons suggest an interest in fashionable attire as does the
presence of jewelry containing paste gemstones but most of the buttons are very
simple opaque glass examples. While Mrs. Cassell did not own land, she did own her
house and, for some years, two slaves; she also did not have to work for a living,
being able to rely on her son in law to support her and his family. While archival
evidence does not support a lavish or wealthy lifestyle for the Cassell household,
material evidence suggests a modestly genteel lifestyle. Lucullus Lawes’ occupation
as a coachmaker or coach trimmer identifies him as a skilled craftsman; however,
the 1860 census record for the family lists neither personal nor real estate values
even though city directory records confirm their continued occupation of the site.
The family may have been constrained in their purchases of stylish goods by their
economic situation since there appears to have only been a single breadwinner, the
son in law, for the family, which expanded to include a grandson by 1860.
Identifying a class for the Cassell/Lawes family is problematical. On the one
hand, their acquisition of decorated ceramic and glass tableware for dining falls in
line with the social dining conventions of the time and suggests their placement
somewhere within the middle class. On the other hand, Lucullus Lawes’ occupation
is more suggestive of the working class since he was engaged in construction of
carriages, arguably a “blue collar” job. However, as Sherry Ortner (1998) has
pointed out,, a working class designation is often rejected by individuals who may
well describe themselves as working men but think of themselves as middle class.
This case, more than the other two, epitomizes the difficulty of defining class,
particularly the middle class which Ortner (1998:8) describes as “the most slippery
category.” Ortner’s (1998:7) labelling of the “largely-white-working-class-thatthinks-of-itself-as-middle-class” as lower middle class may be a fairly good fit here.
The salient indicators for assignment to the middle class, I suggest, are the high
ceramic but low vessel diversity, the fact that the women in the family did not work
outside the home but were supported by the male family member, ownership of
their house despite its modest value, and the ownership of two slave children for an
unknown period of time but probably not more than a few years, at most.
William Hummons and family
William and Emily Hummons were a young married couple when they
bought a lot in Lexington and built a house around 1869 (O’Malley 1996, 2003).
They were married in 1864 by a black Baptist preacher related to Emily while they
were living as slaves on a farm east of Lexington. After the war ended, the couple
moved to Lexington where William worked initially as a wagon driver then became
a blacksmith and farrier by 1880, an occupation he probably kept until his death in
1898. Emily stayed at home to rear their four daughters but in 1900, she was
working as a laundress and later still as a cook for private families; it appears
probable that her return to the workplace was related to her having been widowed
without sufficient economic support. Although William and Emily remained in
working class jobs, they took pains to see that their daughters were educated; at
least two of them became teachers. One of the daughters was a member of the
Lexington chapter of the National Association of Colored Women in the 1920s. The
family attended a large black Baptist church; the daughters were involved in
cultural pursuits such as musical recitals and recitations. Emily was a member of
Queen Victoria’s Court, the female auxiliary of the Knights of Templar; William must
have been a member of the Knights of Templar as well.
Emily’s and William’s race and former slave status as well as the post-Civil
War context in which they lived placed them in a highly ambiguous social situation.
The post-Civil War period in Lexington was chaotic in many respects. Former slaves
had to negotiate new relationships with whites, many of whom were outraged at the
demise of the social order they once had taken for granted. Racially motivated
violence was common, good jobs were scarce, and any misstep could result in ugly
consequences. The black community reacted by closing ranks and creating a
subculture that operated alongside but below the radar of the dominant white
culture. Thus, the racist climate produced segregated residential patterns that had
not existed prior to the Civil War and had the effect of creating neighborhoods
where black families could live together and support one another, unmolested by
white interference. Outside these neighborhoods, however, class relations shifted
and readjusted to the realities of working for white employers, encountering
potentially hostile strangers on the street or in the market, or running afoul of law
enforcement officers.
Class relations for the Hummons family were particularly complex. As freed
slaves, they came from a situation where they had little or no control over their
movements, the fruits of their labor, living conditions, or other civil rights that
people who have never experienced enslavement expect and take for granted. Their
relationships with other freed slaves must have been informed by this shared
experience and the reaction of whites to their emancipation and the abolishment of
slavery. The family lived in a time and place where they were prohibited from
shopping in certain stores, limited to jobs that paid low wages and were often only
seasonally available, and constrained in other ways from participating in activities
that might allow them to ascend the class ladder. William and Emily Hummons also
had relationships with their respective employers that not only directly affected
their income but may also be made materially visible in their assemblage by the
presence of household items that were given to them, particularly as a result of
Emily’s employment as a private cook. Their relationships in the black community
through their church, benevolent society memberships, or other organizations in
which they or their children participated stand in contrast to their standing among
the white community.
The influence of the racialized social landscape in which the Hummons family
is, moreover, inescapable. Wilkie’s (2001: 111) invocation of Habermas’ term
lebenswelt (lifeworld) and his view that “individuals interpret their surroundings
through the observation and analysis of social action” and that “they turn to their
personal expericences to determine how they are to navigate through the social
landscape” becomes a useful lens through which to examine the Hummons’ lived
experience through the artifacts they used.
The Hummons assemblage represents the household cycle of their early
marriage years, the rearing of their children, William’s death in 1898 and Emily’s
years as an elderly widow until her death in 1921. Standing in front of their modest,
frame shotgun house, one might predict that the material goods inside that house
would be similarly modest in diversity and quantity, but this was far from the case.
Elaborate and varied ceramic and pressed glass tablewares with a high diversity of
patterns and vessel forms suggest an interest in setting an elaborate table;
decorative clothing parts and toiletry items indicate the desire to present a very
fashionable and well groomed image; artifacts related to household furnishings
suggest a desire to have a well appointed house. All these trends in the artifact
assemblage belie the family’s modest financial standing. The motivation behind
acquisition of numerous and elaborate household and personal goods may be
interpreted in various ways. Bell’s (2002) research on emulative behavior and
empowerment offers one possible interpretation. While the adoption of the material
culture of people whose socioeconomic standing is perceived as higher requires the
expenditure of funds that might be better spent on other investments, buying things
on the secondhand market or receiving them as part of one’s pay mitigates the
impact that such acquisition has on one’s financial resources. Moreover, the display
of genteel household furnishings and fashionable attire conveys a sense of
appreciation for “nice things” and an understanding of proper etiquette and social
behavior. This strategy could have social benefits both within the black and the
white community, although the benefits may have been different.
Acquisition of elaborate household furnishings and accoutrements could
even be interpreted as a conscious act of resistance against social attitudes held by
the dominant white culture that sought to keep African-Americans in an inferior
societal position. The material evidence is further bolstered by the women’s
participation in local self-help organizations that encouraged the uplifting of the
race, attendance at a prominent black church, and ownership and improvement of
their house and lot.
The Hummons family may well have occupied a dual class standing that was
higher in the black community and was less contingent on how much money they
had or their family background and more on their personal character and industry.
Their class standing among whites was likely quite different, defined more by
convictions of white superiority, the relative position of a blacksmith or a private
cook on the occupational ladder, and even ignorance of the family’s
accomplishments and aspirations. Yet the family, particularly the women, clearly
connected material goods with perceptions of social position and gentility, and
allocated limited financial resources to acquire these material indicators. Notably,
the presence of refined ceramics and glass tableware manufactured many years
before their occupation began suggests secondhand acquisition, either through
purchase at estate auctions or resale outlets or gifts by employers (both common
venues for acquiring used goods).
The three assemblages considered here underscore the complexity implicit
in inferring class relations in material culture. The McGary family’s class standing is
more readily perceptible in the archival record than the archaeological since access
to material goods on the frontier was limited. However, even their relatively small
assemblage contains evidence of dress conventions, storage of valuables under lock
and key and dining behavior that identify them as closer to the elite than the
nonelite. The Cassells and the Hummons had access to an abundance of material
goods but were constrained by their financial position, and, in the Hummons’ case,
possibly by other constraints imposed by racial prejudice. Yet the Hummons
assemblage is quite different from the Cassell assemblage for reasons that are not
immediately obvious without considering other sources of evidence. The Cassell
assemblage is simpler, less overtly stylish and more utilitarian with relatively less
evidence of elaborate dining behavior or fashionable dress. The Hummons
assemblage, on the other hand, shares many similarities with upper class white
assemblages such as Henry Clay’s Ashland Estate in the form of elaborate dining
artifacts, fashionable clothing fasteners,toiletry items and home furnishings. The
presence of artifacts, particularly ceramics, that were manufactured many years
before the date of the occupation, suggests a mechanism for acquiring more
elaborate dishes secondhand, thus saving money but still enabling the buyer to
express genteel and fashionable tastes.
In all three cases, the integration of archival data with the material culture
evidence is essential to identifying social class in a more nuanced way. Factors of
race, sex, occupational status and living situation are important in identifying class
relationships. Investigating class through material culture, while fruitful, is greatly
benefitted by including archival information that illuminates social relationships,
memberships in social organizations, participation in a ranked military system or
other information that has to do with social classifications in which people are
placed. Further, considering class within the context of time and place provides a
useful grounding for drawing conclusions about the social dynamics operating in the
short term in individual assemblages.
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