Haley Stodat

Material Culture
Professor McCleary
17 March 2022
Essay 5: Material Culture in the 19th Century
Monday through Friday, from eight to five, I go to work for a 19th-century historic house

museum. Within this home, there is a parlor that holds the same material objects discussed in

Katherine C Grier’s book Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-

1930. This parlor, and home at large, was maintained in the 19th-century by enslaved

individuals, including at one point and time a mother (Celia) and daughter (Emma), who were

the respective enslaved cook and nursemaid. Though we lack any of Celia and Emma’s original

objects, and have limited information regarding their lives, we can piece together their

experiences by looking at those of other enslaved in similar times, just as Tiya Miles does in her

book All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake.

Though the topics and focuses of these two books may seem extensively different, the

material culture items they address within their pages reflect the larger culture of the 19th-

century, and further highlight the differing stories of diverse peoples, just as we do at Georgia’s

Old Governor’s Mansion (the historic house mentioned above). After reading their books, as

well as the article by Thomas Schlereth and the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative

Slavery (DAACS), it is clear that material culture is communicative, telling public historians

about larger themes of analysis. In the context of the 19th century, one of the main themes

presented was that of gender dynamics.

Though material objects are not sentient beings, they do have a lot to say about the time,

place, and culture in which they were made. But how do we, as public historians from a different

time and place (and possible culture), interpret their story? This is not easy, as Grier highlights
“All analysis of material culture is plagued to some degree by one question: How are we to know

the extent to which makers and users of artifacts understood the levels of meaning that historical

analysis now ascribeds to what remains of their material culture?”1 To answer this, Grier argues

“we often cannot know such a thing with any certainty, but what we can do is map the terrain of

plausible meanings, chart what a motivated individual who is nota specialist could know, and

speculate how participation in the sensibility of his or her culture was possible…[it] is largely the

product of a matching process.”2 This mapping, matching, and speculating is portrayed

throughout her entire book, as Grier addresses how parlor furniture in the 19th century can

portray not just the aesthetic goals of individuals, but also their social understandings, economic

status, gender roles, and more. The users of the objects communicate through their manipulation

of said items, and allow the objects themselves to later share a story simply by existing beyond

the lifespan of their original users.3

For some objects though, existing and surviving is another challenge. Ashley’s sack, an

object that once belonged to an enslaved woman, is an item that would have often fallen through

the cracks of history. It lasted through enslavement, emancipation, the great migration, and

thrifting sales, beating the odds when it came to its survival, and telling a story that is relatively

unknown, but imperative. Miles emphasizes this in the beginning of her book, stating how the

sack can communicate “the visionary fortitude of enslaved Black mothers, the miraculous love

Black women bore for kin, the insistence on radical humanization that Black women carried for
1 This conversion has gone digital, as seen in DAACS, with online platforms that are open to anyone with an
internet connection. Further highlighting the point above, DAACS “data systemically describes both artifacts and
the archaeological contexts from which they were excavated…recorded using…a single set of classification and
measurement protocols. This makes possible, for the first time, seamless quantitative analysis of assemblage
variation across multiple sites. Researchers using DAACS data can discover previously unknown spatial and
temporal trends, recognize site-specific departures from them, and more effectively evaluate hypotheses about the
causes of these archaeological patterns.” These hypotheses, or speculations as Greir puts it, allow modern public
historians to discover the trends, culture, and more as these material objects are discovered.
2 “The simple act of sitting, bending, or lounging could result in broken corset boning (and certainly abdominal
bruising).” Katherine C. Grier, Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-193, 128.
3 Haley Stodart, Georgia’s Old Governor’s Mansion, (Mansion Salon: Milledgeville, GA), March, 17, 2022.
the nation, and the immeasurable value of material culture to the histories of the marginalized.”4

The ability to give a voice to the voiceless, share the tell of those with little literary evidence, is

one of the most critical forms of communication that material culture can offer.

As you can see, Miles focuses a lot on women in her analysis, as her material object was

created by a woman for a woman and passed within a matrilineal line. However, even material

objects–especially the ones from this week’s readings–not made for or by women can tell a lot

about the gender roles and perceptions from a certain time. For example, parlor furniture often

consisted of particular pieces that would make it easier for women to use, as they navigated the

appropriate attire and characteristics associated with their gender in the 19th century; in fact,

some parlor’s were specifically designated for women.5 Georgia’s Old Governor's Mansion has

such a thing; our Ladies Parlor was used predominantly by women, whereas the Salon doubled

as a Men’s Parlor for the gentlemen. However, both spaces were used by both genders on

occasion, and the fainting couch in the Salon is an example of such, as it was there for women’s

use whenever they fainted from lack of oxygen due to their corset.6

These gender roles were harsher within enslavement, and black women had burdens,

sufferings, and mortification that enslaved men in the 19th century would predominantly not.7

They were often raped, used as “producers of pleasure,” to white men, causing many of them to

be given little clothing so they could not hide their bodies.8 The sack Rose gave to her daughter

Ashley–which contained some pecans and a lock of hair–also contained a tattered dress. This gift

was the only way Rose knew how, or had the resources to, “protect [her daughter’s] body from

4 Katherine C. Grier, Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-1930, (Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997), 173.
5 Ibid, 173.
6 Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, (New York: Random
House, 2021), 4.
7 Katherine C. Grier, Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-1930, 60.
8 Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, 96.
exposure and shield an enslaved girl’s inner dignity.” from the assault of white male enslavers'

eyes and bodies.9 Therefore, the sack and its contents emphasized trials that enslaved women in

the 19th century had to endure and the ways in which they tried to find or provide comfort during

such trials.

Free, white women in the 19th century also used clothes as a way to protect their bodies

and dignity, or “chastity”. According to Grier, “Women, the conservators of culture, experienced

bodily constraints that were analogous to the restraining morals and manners of civilized

living.”10 These constraints included corsets, multiple layers of skirts and crinoline and cages,

bustles and more that not only restricted women’s movement and breathing, but could cause

serious damage to their bodies in the process.11 From the sack to the clothes to the parlor

lifestyle, these material culture objects can be analyzed to provide insight into the gender

dynamics of the 19th century.

These material objects connected to gender were also seen as a comfort, another note of

importance in the 19th century. According to Thomas Schlereth, “a growing desire for greater

access to the comforts and conveniences of a standard of living that scholars have identified as

emblematic of a new middle-class consciousness and consensus emerging in the late nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries.”12 Rose and Ashley were not middle-class, nor did they strive for

the comforts one might imagine in consumer culture during this time. However, they did strive

for some level of comfort based on family connection. According to Miles, Ashley’s sack was a

gift that “might remind [her] that she belonged–to a Black family that persevered through racial

animus and a human family that had once not known it…the sack…[was] an expression of what
9 Ibid, 100-107.
10 Ibid, 106.
11 Katherine C. Grier, Culture & Comfort: Parlor Making and Middle-Class Identity, 1850-1930, 127.
12 Thomas J. Schlereth, “Country Stores, County Fairs, and Mail Order Catalogues: Consumption in Rural
America,” in Simon Bronner, Ed., Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 346.
Rose intended for her daughter to do in the case of relentless limbo: carry on with the amor of

love.”13 For Ashley, this sack gave her comfort through the knowledge that she was not alone,

but part of something bigger and more positive.

This level of analysis may seem surprising coming from objects with little written word,

but material culture has a voice that is just as powerful as any letter. It communicates with

modern public historians, sharing the stories of those who may have been unable to share their

own, providing unique perspectives and valuable historical analysis.

13 Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, 122-125.