Michael- Thanks for slammin' the South. We are turning out degreed professionals down here. Yes, it is appalling that Mississippi does not recognize historic sites, but the attitude comes from the fact that many of the older archs from this state grew up on such farms and homesteads and, therefore, do not consider them to be important. However, if the structure has got white columns in the front... I am examining two rural south Louisiana sawmills for my thesis--one African-American and the other Cajun. In some areas of the south, folks are still living the rural lifestyle (where do you think Jeff Foxworthy gets his material from?). Therefore, a small farmstead that was begun in the 1800s may still be in the same family's hands today. It's fun to go to antique stores and flea markets with older southern folks people in their 40s and 50s) because they remember using some of the stuff sold there when they were kids or remember seeing granny use it. Not all of us down here are crammed into huge, crime-filled cities like up there where you are. Just giving another perpsective on how the significance of rural sites are perceived. Elizabeth >>> Michael Nassaney <[log in to unmask]> 8/10/95, 01:25pm >>> Linda, I, too, share your concern with the way the state of Mississippi treats late 19th-early 20th century farmsteads or rural sites. But does it come as any surprise? Who, do you suppose, occupied 90% of these sites? Just a rhetorical question to which I'm sure you know the answer. This observation is related to another broader question that one of my colleagues posed to me some time ago when I remarked at how few institutions in the American South granted Ph.D.s in anthropology. Keep in mind that much of the pioneering work in method and theory in the American Southeast was perfomed by Harvard, Michigan, American Museum of Natural History, etc. Just looking to rustle some feathers (and get us thinking about how present social relations influence the practice of investigating the past). Michael Nassaney Western Michigan University