Jordon Loucks and I are looking for papers to fill out a session broadly focused on labor and immigration in the northeastern United States (see abstract below). We are especially interested in papers that address cultural landscapes produced by immigrant labor, the many ways in which these landscapes worked against the laborers who produced them, and/or the struggle to lay claim to the heritage of those landscapes. If you are interested please send us an email off-list.

Mike: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Jordon: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>


Abstract
From slavery to unionization, the relationship between those doing the work, and the industries that prospered throughout the Northeast's history, helped to define the cultural identities that the descendent groups of those labor forces lay claim to today. Historical archaeology often links the concept of labor with resource extraction or infrastructure projects sites such as mines, factories, canals, or logging camps. But labor, as broadly conceived, is a productive force used to construct and maintain landscapes on many scales including plantations, individual homes, or golf courses. Immigrant communities have provided much of the labor used to build and sustain the "Industrial Northeast" and gained the least in economic return.  At the same time, cultural landscapes produced by that labor, work to create and sustain boundaries of race and class that problematize definitions of American cultural identity. This symposium includes recent archaeological studies from the northeastern United States that explore the relationships between immigrant groups and the cultural landscapes produced by their labor.  Papers in the session draw on examples from the seventeenth through twentieth century.


Michael T. Lucas
Curator of Historical Archaeology
CEC Room 3049
New York State Museum
Albany, NY 12230
518-486-2015





Confidentiality Notice

This email including all attachments is confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. This communication may contain information that is protected from disclosure under State and/or Federal law. Please notify the sender immediately if you have received this communication in error and delete this email from your system. If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited.