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I have only just caught up with this debate thanks to Andy Edwards at
CWF and Esther White at Mount Vernon, as I had taken myself off the list
when I left the UK in late September for a three month sabbatical in the
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

 

My sympathies are with Robert Schuyler's version of the current
situation. In the UK, I recently organized a conference to draw up a
Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology in the UK, one of a series
part funded by English Heritage - there have been other research
frameworks produced so far for Roman Britain and for the Iron Age. In
this conference, and the subsequent publication ('Understanding the
Workplace; a Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology in Britain',
edited by David Gwyn and Marilyn Palmer, published as 'Industrial
Archaeology Review', Vol. XXVII, No. 1 May 2005 by Maney of Leeds)
concentrated on the social archaeology of industrialization, which is
the approach I would like to foster. The papers in Eleanor Casella's and
Jim Symonds' 'New Directions in Industrial Archaeology' (Kluwer Plenum,
2005) generally follow this line too. 

 

However, certainly in Europe, I think that the duality of title will
persist. It was noticeable at the Conference which led to 'Understanding
the Workplace' that the English Heritage attitude was lukewarm towards
the social approaches advocated and undoubtedly their view of the
discipline is inclined to the industrial heritage angle - which has, of
course, been very successful in gaining five new World Heritage sites in
the UK designated for the value of their industrial past ( Derwent
Valley of Derbyshire, Saltaire, New Lanark, Blaenavon in South Wales,
Mining District of Cornwall and West Devon). The Great Western Railway
from Paddington to Bristol may well follow in the next couple of years.
And English Heritage has an Industrial Archaeology Advisory Group (on
which I sit) but it does not have an historical archaeology advisory
group, nor does The National Trust: their Archaeology Panel had first
Angus Buchanan and then myself as the representatives of industrial
archaeology. Historical archaeology in the UK has made great strides in
academia but not yet in public archaeology, a perhaps contradictory
position to that in the USA - that is what I am in Colonial Williamsburg
to study! And TICCIH (The Committee for the Conservation of the
Industrial Heritage) is very influential in Europe and is consulted by
ICOMOS on future World heritage sites which have an industrial element
to them. 

 

Like Pat Martin (our Leicester Distance Learning MA is entitled
'Archaeology and Heritage' for similar reasons to the ones he cites), I
think we still have to straddle the fence, uncomfortable thought it may
be. At the risk of blocking your mailboxes (please delete fast!) I have
just had to think this through for a piece for an Elsevier Encyclopaedia
of Archaeology edited by Deborah Pearsall and concluded the piece as
follows - comments very welcome!

 

'Has, in fact, the term 'industrial archaeology' now outlived its
usefulness?  Should it instead be termed 'later historical archaeology'
or 'modern historical archaeology', which defines the discipline as the
study of material culture within a textual framework but also gives it a
period definition? This would not be a popular solution, however: as
Keith Falconer of English Heritage has said, 'just as Britain is
perceived to have pioneered the industrial revolution and have
bequeathed industrialization to the world two centuries ago, so, in the
last half century there is a similar perception that this country has
pioneered and given the subject of industrial archaeology to the world'.
Rather, we may have to continue to operate on two levels: the acceptance
of a term such as 'later historical archaeology' for the academic study
of the archaeology of industrialization, but a continuing popular
recognition of 'industrial archaeology' as the study and conservation of
the monuments of past industrial activity and generally synonymous with
'industrial heritage'. In this sense, industrial archaeology has been
extremely successful in achieving what its pioneers set out to do,
achieve recognition for the importance of the remains of the industrial
past and where possible their survival in the contemporary landscape.
But in the second half of the twentieth century, industrial archaeology
has developed from a purely amateur pastime, motivated by a desire to
preserve the material remains of Britain's industrial past, into a more
mature scholarly discipline. New studies have contributed towards the
development of social approaches to the discipline,  while studies of
industrial landscapes have explored ways in which these manifest not
just the physical remains of industrial processes but also evidence for
past hierarchical power relations. In these ways, industrial archaeology
has broken free of its earlier constraints to become an archaeology of
industrialization' - something I previously argued in Graeme Barker's
edited 'Routledge Companion Encyclopaedia of Archaeology'. I am sure the
debate will continue - but then so did the controversy over the nature
of historical archaeology in the USA, and it is all the better for it!!

 

Marilyn Palmer, Professor of Industrial Archaeology, University of
Leicester, UK

 

Visiting Fellow, Rockefeller Library, CWF

 

Office number 727 565 8864