Reading Blog -- Oct. 1st

The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth

Looking back to the creation of the United States of America. It is hard to ignore the American spirit of the “ordinary people”. These people built the early structure of the American economy and industry. The people play an important role in the nation’s creation because America is a country truly founded by the people and is filled by other immigrants from other country.

In this book, The Age of Homespun author tries to answer the question how does the female economy raised and had the industrial revolution changed not only women’s work but work itself? Because in 17^th century New England, weaving was a male occupation and only few families owned spinning wheels but at the late 18^th century, cloth-making was common seeing and the important foundation of the society.

This reading tries to analyze the American life of the early Americans. Especially the connections between homemade objects and professional made objects in shops.   

Quilts, Old Kitchens, and the Social Geography of Gender at Nineteenth Century Sanitary Fairs

Early in the fall of 1863, a group of Brooklyn women organized the Sanitary Aid Society for the purpose of working to benefit Union soldiers. The purpose was to raise money to assist soldiers and their families through the sale of handmade items and refreshments.

The quilt making is a symbolic practice in America. Understanding the history of these common things in American life can leads us to know the relation between the making of objects and its meanings.

        One of the most important meaning is that the raise of the women conscious. Those party and organizations looks like just a part of social activities but actually were the external expression of female consciousness. In the kitchen or the quilt making party in the nineteen century not only shows the efficiency and the elegant of women but also shows the social status of women start getting close to men.

The Architecture of Racial Segregation

The Challenges of Preserving the Problematical Past/ Robert R. Weyeneth

Racial segregation happened after civil in 1960s. Even the constitution of the United States protects people’s rights; the life of black and white Americans were totally different at the racial segregation period. In this reading, whether we need to preserve buildings built under the racial segregation period.

The Jim Crow Laws between 1876 to 1965 rules the law against all colored races especially African Americans. The law rules that all public facilities need to be separated into different sections for white and colored people. The Jim Crow Law was not against the constitution because everything was only separated into two sections but still equal to each other. But the truth is that mostly white people can get better service and support. This difference makes African Americans suffering a worse condition educationally, economically, and socially.

Racial segregation was established architecturally in two major ways: through architectural isolation and through architectural partitioning. Architectural isolation represented the enterprise of constructing and maintaining places that kept whites and blacks apart, isolated from one another. Architectural partitioning represented the effort to segregate within facilities that were shared by the races.

The values of preserving the architecture in the Jim Crow era are to let people understand about the race relations in that time and can be actually seeing the separate doors in one entrance. Thinking about how people were treated during that time should be a effective way to engage racial issues.

White and Black Landscapes in Eighteenth-Century Virginia

Dell Upton

In the second reading, author describes different point of view in an eighteen century plantation complex in Virginia. The complex was mainly designed according to owner’s needs. The big complex or mansion would be on the top of the hill and the slave house would be down the hill away from the main house.

From the view point of the white owner, everything is connected easily and close to his mansion. He can even build any new route to any places he wants. From the black people point of view, all the places are disconnect and inconvenient to move from one place to another.

Conclusion

The first two readings are about gender issue and the other two are about racial issue. All four readings are about the life of American under some sort of oppression and how do they respond to the environment. Using objects such as homespun, quilt, buildings, and slave houses to understand the life of people is an approach similar to archeology approach because they all starts with something small and tries to find out a bigger view. This week’s reading actually gave me a thought on researching about how to others feel when they see someone is wearing a top hat like the one assigned to me.(the object I got is a man’s top hat). What was the meaning of wearing that expensive top hat? Was it just a hat or people will consider the person who’s wearing it a wealthy man?