|
The Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG) at
the University at Buffalo awards the grants on a competitive basis to
UB faculty and staff for innovative multidisciplinary studies/research
on women and gender. The Institute is particularly interested in funding
projects that are collaborative or interdisciplinary, and that will provide
preliminary data for a grant proposal to be submitted to a regional or
national agency.
Women and Gender at Fort Niagara, IREWG Research Awards Competition
Project Description by Dr. Elizabeth Peņa and Dr. Erik Seeman
Archaeological investigations of 18th-century military sites in North
America traditionally have been centered around fortifications, military
structures, weaponry, and battle tactics. More recent work has examined
the social context of military life, exploring material and social boundaries
between officers and enlisted men (e.g., Fisher 1983, 1995; Feister 1984a,
1984b). While historical documents are replete with references to women
on military sites, this aspect of military life largely has been unexplored
(Mayer 1996; Starbuck 1994). The lack of attention to issues related to
women on 18th-century military sites arises from several factors, including
biases in primary documents, which were almost exclusively written by
men, and the difficulty of identifying material cultural correlates for
women in the archaeological record of 18th-century military sites.
Bringing our anthropological and historical perspectives together, we
aim to contribute to the nascent field of study on women and military
life. Our study will suggest that current conceptions of military experience
are incomplete without attention to women and gender. Although forts are
associated with the male world of military battles, they were also hetersocial
worlds, miniature (if peculiar) versions of the broader society. Thus,
Anglo-American female camp followers were ever present, as officers' wives,
seamstresses, cooks, and prostitutes. Moreover, Iroquois women frequented
Fort Niagara, as members of diplomatic delegations and as traders. An
attention to women, therefore, will help broaden scholars' understanding
of military life in early America, with greater attention to the daily
lives of Anglo-American and Indian men and women.
Fort Niagara, located at the junction of the Niagara River and Lake Ontario
in Youngstown, New York, is a particularly good site for this type of
research. Initiated in the 17th century as a French trading post, Fort
Niagara came under British control in 1759, during the Seven Years' War.
The Fort also played important roles in the American Revolution and the
War of 1812. As a major commercial and military outpost, Fort Niagara
had a prominent position on the colonial frontier. There exists a wealth
of documentation on the fort, and much of these data are accessible at
the library at Old Fort Niagara, which is now a New York State Historic
Site, operated by the Old Fort Niagara Association in cooperation with
the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
The anthropological aspect of the project involves archaeological excavation
at Fort Niagara, through a field school sponsored by the UB Department
of Anthropology. Analysis of the excavations as well as existing collections
held at Fort Niagara will focus on teasing out clues related to women.
Because these traces are bound to be meager, they must be understood within
a solid historical contextual framework. For example, historical records
from other military sites indicate that it was the female camp followers
who took care of laundry and sewing, so the discovery of needles, thimbles,
pins, irons, and similar artifacts would suggest an area of female activity
(Starbuck 1994: 125). Site specific historical research will yield information
on what activities were part of the female domain at 18th-century Fort
Niagara. This research will include research and review of a multitude
of primary documents, including orderly books, enlistment records, maps,
plans, letters, and the like. These sources will be culled for information
relating to the presence of women and their activities at Fort Niagara.
These tasks would be aided by a graduate research assistant funded by
the IREWG grant.
In addition to tracing women archaeologically and historically, we will
explore gender roles as socially constituted at Fort Niagara. Given that
the female presence was minimal, some of the activities traditionally
assigned to women must have been relegated to men (e.g., Johnson 2000).
How this apportionment was made will help inform us about the social organization
of 18th-century military life.
While the archaeological field school begins this season (May-June 2001),
the analysis for this project will begin in the fall 2001 semester, during
an Anthropology Department graduate seminar on Fort Niagara (APY736).
Graduate students from Anthropology and History, in the seminar and independently,
will have the opportunity to conduct aspects of this research under the
guidance of the Project Investigators. The immediate goal of the project
is to marshal our multidisciplinary perspectives to publish a significant
article on women and gender at Fort Niagara. We plan to submit this article
to a peer-reviewed journal such as the Journal of Women's History, New
York History, or Historical Archaeology by the end of the spring 2002
semester. This article will serve as a stepping stone for further work
at Fort Niagara, and a future NEH application to research and write a
comprehensive book on the historical archaeology of 18th-century military
life at the fort.
References Cited
Feister, L. 1984a Building material indicative of status differentiation
at the Crown Point Barracks. Historical Archaeology 18(1): 103-107.
1984b Material culture of the British soldier at "His Majesty's Fort at
Crown Point" on Lake Champlain, New York, 1759-1783. Journal of Field
Archaeology 11(2): 123-132.
Fisher, C. 1983 Archaeology at New Windsor Cantonment: Construction and
social reproduction at a Revolutionary War encampment. Northeast Historical
Archaeology 12: 15-23.
1995 The Archaeology of provincial officers' huts at Crown Point State
Historic Site. Northeast Historical Archaeology 24: 65-86.
Johnson, S. 2000 Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold
Rush. W.W. Norton, New York.
Mayer, H. 1996 Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During
the American Revolution. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia.
Starbuck, D. 1995 The Identification of Gender at Northern Military Sites
of the Late Eighteenth Century, pp. 115-128 in Those of Little Note: Gender,
Race, and Class in Historical Archaeology, ed. E. Scott. University of
Arizona Press, Tucson.
|