Meli,

You ask a good question. In this instance, using ca. 1880 to 1920, as
someone suggested above, would work well.

For historians, what I have casually called the turn *to* the 20th century
(I do not think that is the accepted phrasing) indeed indicates a complex
cultural mindset that in the United States was a tangle of Victorianism and
the "closing" of the American frontier, in which the Gilded Age of
industrial giants transitioned into the Progressive Era of reforms. I
suspect the turn of this century will come to mean something similar to
historians and archaeologists and will receive its own label.

For a discussion of the period in question, I suspect that "turn of the 20th
century" will continue to be used as the later century has emphasis in the
cultural meaning of the phrase--Americans were turning *to*, changing
*to* something.
I have no idea how the phrase would be used in other contexts.

Just some thoughts,


Kristen Baldwin Deathridge

PhD Candidate in Public History
Graduate Fellow, Center for Historic Preservation,
Middle Tennessee State University
(MA in Archaeology, University of Reading)



On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 7:46 AM, sent <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> To use the phrase one must qualify it to refer to century.
>
> The other usage would be in terms of cultural change and awareness - at
> times the "turn of the century" was used to reflect mindset. A feeling of
> cultural change, of the essence of a period. So....it is useful to define
> such a cultural configuration if that configuration is defined.
>
> if not used with qualification the phrase is as useful as "sherd count"
> which is to say useless and using "sherd count" as an end in itself other
> than accounting practice even more useless but I digress....
>
> Conrad
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Melissa Diamanti
> Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 10:45 PM
>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: turn of the century - vaguely
>
> I know my original question about the use of the phrase "Turn of the 19th
> century" or "turn of the 20th century" to mean c.1900 would generate lively
> discussion and a few chuckles. But I'm not concerned in this case with
> whether the century in question began in January 1900 or January 1901. On
> the contrary, I'm looking for an easy way to refer something that is shown
> in a historic photograph.  the best I can pin it down is that the photo was
> taken some time between the 1880s and the 1910s. So I would like to use a
> vague term for the feature shown in the photo, like dating it to the "turn
> of the 20th century."  But it's the qualifier that has me stuck and looking
> for a consensus on how to use the term.Looking for a consensus among
> archaeologists?!?! I must be nuts.I'd still like to know what term others
> might use in a similar context. So, have at it.Meli
>