Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Fit between Producers and Consumers in Traditional Society

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Dr. Matthew Liebmann and Eric Johnson of Harvard University will investigate the relationship between production in the core of an expanding state and consumption on its colonial borders. Recent work in archaeology reveals the many ways that humans use "foreign-made" objects to forge meaningful social identities. Yet this focus on identity tends to downplay important economic interdependencies between production and consumption. Researchers will analyze the archaeological remains of shell bead manufacturing centers New Jersey between 1750 and 1900 CE. At these sites, Euro-Americans produced shell beads for export to Native American consumers on the Great Plains. How did interactions on the borders of an expanding American state impact industrialization in New Jersey? What factors led to the successes and failures of making and selling products to indigenous consumers? And how did Native consumers use Jersey-made beads to achieve their own social and political goals? Today, much of the American manufacturing sector relies on the tastes of consumers who live outside the country's boundaries. The forces that drive industry - and the success or struggles of workers - are often tied to distant political and cultural factors beyond the immediate understanding of producers. By investigating the effects of state policies on the fortunes of both early American industrialists and Native nations, this research offers key insights into the relationship between the economy, state policy, and international affairs. The archaeological excavations conducted by this project will provide opportunities for student training in scientific methods of archaeology. Researchers will engage publically with community stakeholders through local historical societies and the New Jersey State Museum in an effort to show how a local American industry was intimately tied to indigenous cultures, economies, and conflicts on the Great Plains. Researchers will examine changes over time between production and consumption in order to determine the factors that influenced the rise and fall of an American industry. Shell beads have been made in North America for thousands of years, but by the American Revolution, Irish and Dutch settlers in northern New Jersey became the major exporters of beads for the fur trade. Combined with analysis of existing museum collections, excavations in New Jersey will target "proto-industrial" and "industrial" shell bead manufacturing sites to gather archaeological data in the form of debris, waste, bead blanks, tools, and finished beads. These will be examined along with historical accounts, factory ledgers, and fur trade records to track elements of "industrialization" such as efficiencies, technologies, standardization, and scale of output. Archaeological, historical, ethnographic, and portraiture data will be used to track broad regional trends in Native uses of shell beads throughout the 19th century. How were beads worn by different tribes, genders, and ages? In what contexts, and to what end? This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.