Hello Jay,
I have inferred the meaning of flowerpots in the dominant gender
ideology from the most popular domestic manual of the second half of the
19th century - The American Woman's Home by Catharine Beecher and her
famous sister Harriet Beecher Stowe. They designed and advocated a home
conservatory in a parlor bay window, with plants of various sizes in
flowerpots,as well as a terrarium, to bring a family's children into
contact with the morally reforming influence of God's natural world, which
was associated with women. Beecher and Stowe were among the reform women I
call domestic reformers because they valorized women's supposed innate
superior morality due to the closeness of women and their domestic sphere
to nature, removed from men's public capitalist sphere that permitted the
biblical sins of usury, price gouging, and labor exploitation, which were
all illegal in the theocracy of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Some domestic
reformers created children's gardens and playgrounds, as well as prison
gardens (currently reviving), to morally reform juveniles and prisoners by
bringing them into contact with God's natural world, which was associated
with women in the dominant gender ideology.

The inference about the meaning of flowerpots is made in the following
publication:

Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M. 1999    The World Their Household: Changing
Meanings of the Domestic Sphere in the Nineteenth Century.  In *The
Archaeology of Household Activities,* edited by Penelope M. Allison. Pp.
162-89. Routledge, London.    flowerpot meaning on p. 183

The moral meaning of nature motivating reform women to create green spaces
such as children's gardens and playgrounds in men's "sinful cities of
stone" is in:

Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M. 2003. Gendering the Creation of Green Urban
landscapes in America at the Turn of the Century.  In *Shared Spaces and
Divided Places. Material Dimensions of Gender Relations and the American
Historical Landscape*, edited by D.L. Rotman and E. Savulis. Pp. 24-61.
Knoxville, U. of Tennessee Press.

I would be very interested to know if you find more about the meaning of
gardens at asylums. I was the outside reviewer on Susan Piddock's PhD
dissertation.

regards,

suzanne






On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Stottman, Michael J <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> I am looking for any information on studies of flower pots.  In
> particular, I am trying locate good resources on the history of terra cotta
> flower pots and relationship of size to use.  Also I am looking for info on
> greenhouse heating systems.  The session at the SHA conference in Baltimore
> last year was very good and I have some great resources from the histarch
> discussion of greenhouses and orangeries a couple of years ago, but I am
> looking more specifically at the mid to late nineteenth century and within
> an institutional context.  I am working on a greenhouse at the Eastern
> State Lunatic Asylum in Lexington, Kentucky where I have brick foundations,
> trench features associated with a heating system (seems to be for hearth
> and ash clean-out), and thousands of terra cotta flower pot sherds of
> various sizes.  I am looking to relate these resources to nineteenth
> century philosophies of architectural and landscape designs for asylums,
> such as the Kirkbride model and to treatment philosophies (I have Susan
> Piddock's edited volume and diss.).  Any suggestions for historical
> references or archaeological studies of flower pots and greenhouses would
> be much appreciated, I am trying make sure I am not missing anything.
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>
>
> Jay
>
>
>
> M. Jay Stottman
> Staff Archaeologist
> Kentucky Archaeological Survey
>