This book explores the material dimensions of class formation in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, and nineteenth-century Lowell, Massachusetts. During their economic peaks these cities represented perhaps the purist forms of capitalism in North America. The two cities reveal contrasting portraits of class identity, one based upon the analysis of material culture and spatial practices, and one based upon the examination of environmental conditions and health. This ground-breaking study argues that notions of class incorporating variables such as ethnicity and gender were shaped by the...

This book explores the material dimensions of class formation in eighteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, and nineteenth-century Lowell, Massachusetts. During their economic peaks these cities represented perhaps the purist forms of capitalism in North America. The two cities reveal contrasting portraits of class identity, one based upon the analysis of material culture and spatial practices, and one based upon the examination of environmental conditions and health. This ground-breaking study argues that notions of class incorporating variables such as ethnicity and gender were shaped by the...

Since the eighteenth century, the concept of prehistory was exported by colonialism to far parts of the globe and applied to populations lacking written records. Prehistory in these settings came to represent primitive people still living in a state without civilization and its foremost index, literacy. Yet, many societies outside the Western world had developed complex methods of history making and documentation, including epic poetry and the use of physical and mental mnemonic devices. Even so, the deeply engrained concept of prehistory--deeply entrenched in European minds up to the...