MESDA SUMMER INSTITUTE

Early Southern Material Culture & Decorative Arts The Southern Backcountry June 25-July 20, 2012
MESDA Summer Institute, ARAH 5753

The University of Virginia The Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts RESIDENT SCHOLAR: Dr. Carroll Van West Professor of History; Director, Center for Historic Preservation Middle Tennessee University

COURSE DESCRIPTION
SCOPE OF THE COURSE
The MESDA Summer Institute is an intensive graduate-level introduction to the decorative arts, history and material culture of the south in general and specifically of one selected southern region each summer. The four-week course includes a number of lectures, collection studies and workshops by members of the staff of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Old Salem, Inc., and the faculty of the University of Virginia, the UVA MESDA Summer Institute Resident Scholar, and several guest scholars.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
All of the lectures and programs are geared toward three particular goals: Learning to interpret objects as material culture in the writing of southern history Learning to identify the characteristics of southern decorative arts and architecture from the late seventeenth to the mid nineteenth century, and Learning the history of the region under study Over the course of the four weeks, the students will engage all three simultaneously and will demonstrate their command of all three in the presentation of their research projects during the final days of the institute. The Summer Institute engages a number of different disciplinary perspectives, including history, decorative arts, documentary research, and material culture. Lectures and discussion sessions during the program will be related to each of these subjects as are the required readings listed below. Participants will find that their research projects are substantial undertakings that require a great deal of peripheral reading and research, leaving little time for the fairly substantive required readings for each of the disciplines outlined below.

HISTORY: The writing of history has in the last few decades expanded to incorporate a broad field of subjects. While political, military, and institutional history dominated the discourse for much of the twentieth century, some of the best historians are now addressing issues of shifting social relations and cultural change, gender and race, and religion and economics, as well as others. The shift toward the writing of local history and assessing microcosms as case studies of local culture has opened the door to incorporating the decorative arts and architecture as critical documents in the writing of that history. A number of lectures and activities will reinforce the history component of the course. DECORATIVE ARTS: Scholarship in the decorative arts has also shifted dramatically over the last few decades. In the early and mid-twentieth century, the groundwork was laid for the careful connoisseurship of early American decorative arts. Scholars began to notice that subtle variations were clues to regional traditions and great energy was spent dating and attributing objects. Associated with this careful analysis of objects is knowledge of materials, technology, and production, and awareness of the appropriate care and handling of objects. MESDA, of course, was and is central to this process for southern American decorative arts. While the advent of material culture has integrated the decorative arts into the writing of history, those critical skills of assessing objects are still the necessary foundation of good scholarship. In a field where few objects bear makers marks or dates of manufacture, attributing and dating objects is essential; the writing of material culture history with the principle objects misattributed or misdated is simply poor scholarship. A number of lectures and activities will reinforce the decorative arts component of the course, including lectures and collection studies by MESDA staff and numerous guest lecturers. PRIMARY DOCUMENT ANALYSIS: Much of the study of material culture

depends on the kind of research and interpretation skills that are usually the purview of the social historian. As MESDAs research center demonstrates, newspapers are a remarkable mine of information about the material world.

Probate inventorieslistings of objects owned by an individual at their death and other primary resources are incredibly useful documents in the writing of early American material culture, although they can be problematic. For this session, groups of students will be given an early primary document and will be expected to study it carefully and work with it with the MESDA Collection and Research Center archives as aids. This project has three goals: 1) it is a quick means of immersing students in original research using the object collection and primary sources 2) it is a way of introducing students to the value and frustrations of period documents 3) it will reveal the biases of decorative arts collections. The project will involved collection study and group discussion. MATERIAL CULTURE: So what, then, is material culture? Material culture is a field of scholarship that has arisen from the intersection of history and decorative arts. Material culture assumes as its central method that the object is an extremely valuable document in the writing of cultural history. As a result, material culture depends heavily on both fields as foundations, but is distinct from both as well. The MESDA Summer Institute is geared specifically to introducing the students to the field of material culture for use in both classroom and museum settings. A number

of lectures and activities will reinforce the material culture component of the course.

FOUR-WEEK SCHEDULE OUTLINE:

Classes meet daily, Monday - Friday in the MESDA Auditorium. Sessions include lectures, discussions, workshops and collection studies. Most days begin at 9 a.m. and afternoon sessions end at various times, depending upon the day. The museum Library and Research Center are open to Institute participants until 7:30 p.m. Monday - Thursday. WEEK ONE: Orientation and Introductions Monday: Arrival, Registration, check-in to accommodations / Opening Dinner Tuesday: Orientation sessions; Introduction to Research Projects Wednesday: Introduction to Material Culture Thursday: Introduction to the Southern Backcountry; the Shenandoah Valley Friday: The Moravians and the North Carolina Piedmont and Beyond Saturday: Day-trip to Southwest Virginia WEEK TWO: Focus on the decorative arts, landscape, and peoples of the Backcountry Monday: Lectures / Collection Studies: Tuesday: Lectures / Collection Studies Wednesday: (July 4) Morning with Historic Trades; informal July 4 Supper Thursday: Lectures / Collection Studies Friday: Lectures / Collection Studies WEEK THREE: Into the Backcountry: Study Trip to East and Middle Tennessee Sunday: Departure / Elizabethton /Jonesborough Monday: Jonesborough/Kingsport Tuesday: Knoxville / East Tennessee Historical Society /Ramsay House Wednesday: Lebanon / Castallian Springs / Cragfont / The Hermitage Thursday: Nashville / Tennessee State Museum / South Union Shaker Museum Friday: Franklin / Historic Carnton / Columbia / James K. Polk Home Saturday: Return to Winston-Salem WEEK FOUR: Research & Presentation Monday: Final sessions / Research Project Preparation Tuesday: Research Project Preparation Wednesday: Research Project Preparation

Thursday: Research Project Presentations Friday: Research Project Presentations / Closing Dinner

STUDENT RESEARCH PROJECTS: The student research projects will have two

final components: a rehearsed 20-minute presentation and a 5 to 10 page final paper. The projects must demonstrate that the student has begun to explore the interpretive possibilities of material culture. This assumes that the student depends on both the subtle contours of history and the careful examination of the decorative arts, but combines both in the writing of material culture. As a way of striking a balance between narrative history and object analysis, these projects must be both object centered, i.e. that the research project must concentrate on an object or a very small handful of related objects, and object driven, i.e. the paper must have a thesis statement that uses objects as evidence in the writing of history, as is the case in all good material culture scholarship. Thus, a history paper that uses a few objects as mere illustrations is not acceptable, nor is a paper that remains content with the detached assessment of an object. While this may seem a daunting task for some, the Resident Scholar will be available throughout the course of the four weeks to assist the students in framing their projects in both group settings and in individual consultation. The student projects unfold in five stages, each with its own due date. A list of possible project topics will be provided, or participants may propose their own topics which must be related to the Institute study and approved by the Resident Scholar and staff. 1) Research topics will be selected and turned in to the instructors by 5:00 on Friday, June 29. This will be a paragraph introducing your subject and some general questions to drive your research. 2) Research project abstracts and a working bibliography are due to the instructor by 5:00 pm, Thursday, July 5. The one-page abstract will include two items: your thesis statement (which, of course, might change as your research progresses) and the relationship of your research to previous work on the subject. You must keep in mind that these projects are to demonstrate original research. As a result, you must know the earlier bibliography on the subject and how your work adds to the current state of research. 3) A draft of your research paper is due to the professor at 9:00 am, Tuesday, July 17. These drafts will introduce the subject, outline the method of research, and summarize the conclusions. 4) The students will present their papers in an illustrated and wellrehearsed 20-minute presentation on Thursday and Friday, July 19 and 20. As a way of streamlining the process, students are expected to draw their presentations directly from the drafts of their papers. This will help them order their presentations in a logical manner and to successfully present their material in the allotted 20 minutes. 5) Final papers, complete with illustrations, footnotes, and bibliography are to be turned in to the instructors in the week following the Institute. RESEARCH PROJECT SCHEDULE: Friday, June 29: Research project: Topic selected

Thursday, July 5, 5 pm: Tuesday, July 17: 9 am: July 19 and 20: Week of July 23:

Research project: Abstract and bibliography Draft of research paper Research project: Presentations Final paper submitted.

EVALUATION: Class Participation: 50% / Research Project: 50%

PRELIMINARY READING:
To be read prior to the beginning of the Institute Book Martin, Ann Smart. Buying into the World of Goods: Early Consumers in Backcountry Virginia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. HC107 V83 C66 2008 (available on Kindle) Articles and Essays Note: PDFs of these readings are available through a MESDA Google account. MESDAs librarian, Michele Doyle will be in touch with you about this access within the next few days. * Attfield, Judy. Introduction: The Material Culture of Everyday Life; Things and the Dynamics of Social Change in Wild Things: The Material Culture of Everyday Life. Oxford, New York: Berg, 2000. Fleming, E. McClung. Artifact Study: A Proposed Model, Winterthur Portfolio, 9 (1974), 153-173. Hendricks, Christopher. The Backcountry Towns of Colonial Virginia. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2006. Introduction; The Promised Fruits of Well-ordered Towns; The Great Valley. pp. xii xxii 1-22; 87-122. HT 167.5 V8 H46 Hill, Sarah H. Weaving History: Cherokee Baskets from the Springplace Mission The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser. 53:1 (January 1996), pp. 115-136. Lewis, Johanna Miller. Artisans in the North Carolina Backcountry. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995, pp. 5-16; 58-76; 113-138. F262 R8 L44 * Meskell, Lynn. Taxonomy, Agency, Biography in Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt: Material Biographies, Past and Present. Oxford and New York: Berg, 2004 Mitchell, Robert D. The Southern Backcountry: A Geographical House Divided, in Crass, David Colin et al, eds. The Southern Colonial Backcountry: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Frontier Communities. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press (1998) pp. 1-35. F212 S68 Prown, Jonathan, The Backcountry, in Hurst and Prown, eds., in Southern Furniture 16801830: The Colonial Williamsburg Collection. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997, pp. 35-46. NK2411 H87 1997 Prown, Jules David. Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method Winterthur Portfolio, 17: 1 (Spring, 1982). 1-19. * For Bernard L. Hermanns Introduction to Material Culture, Wednesday, June 27: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Optional reading: Krill, Rosemary Troy and Pauline K. Eversmann. Early American Decorative Arts 1620-1860: A Handbook for Interpreters. Winterthur: The Henry Francis du Pont Museum, 2010. www.altamirapress.com Excellent introduction to the study of American decorative arts Ehle, John. The Landbreakers. Winston-Salem, NC: Press 53, 2006. P. O. Box 30314, Winston-Salem, NC 27130. Fiction: A "complex, compelling story of settlement and
discovery introducing readers to the Blue Ridge past, to explorers, families, and the land. Available on Kindle.

IN PREPARATION FOR TRAVEL TO TENNESSEE: These readings will also be available as pdfs Caldwell, Benjamin. Tennessee Silversmiths in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 201-212 Faulkner, Charles H. Knoxville and the Southern Appalachian Frontier: An Archaeological Perspective in Tennessee Historical Quarterly. Fall 2000. Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society. 158-174. Gavin, Michael T. Building with Wood, Brick and Stone: Vernacular Architecture in Tennessee 1790-1900 in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 17-34 Goodstein, Anita A.Black History on the Nashville Frontier in Trial and Triumph: Essays in Tennessees African American History. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 2002. 3-22 Hankins, Caneta Skelley. Hugh Rogan of Counties Donegal and Sumner: Irish Acculturation in Frontier Tennessee. in Tennessee History: The Land, the People and the Culture. Carroll Van West, Editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998. 56-79 Masler, Marilyn. Painting in 19th-Century Tennessee in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 79-98 McKee, Larry. Archaeological Study of Slavery and Plantation Life in Tennessee in Trial and Triumph: Essays in Tennessees African American History. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 2002. 93-110 Rogers, Stephen T. Jugs, Jars, Bowls and Churns: Tennessees Ceramic Crafts and Potters in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 213-227 Smith, Kevin E. Bledsoe Station: Archaeology, History, and the Interpretation of the Middle Tennessee Frontier, 1770-1820 in Tennessee Historical Quarterly. Fall 2000. Nashville: Tennessee Historical Society. 175-189 Smith, Kevin E. Prehistoric Art and Artisans of Tennessee in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 3-16 Teasley, Christi. Tennessee Textiles in A History of Tennessee Arts: Creating Traditions, Expanding Horizons. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004. 228-234 Tolbert , Lisa C. Murder in Franklin in Trial and Triumph: Essays in Tennessees African American History. Carroll Van West, editor. Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 2002. 38-53