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158 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 41(2) 159 Reviews houses” and utilize “a higher degree of interior finish” (p. xvi), reflecting a growing preference for specialized spaces linked to privacy, socia- Edited by Charles R. Ewen bility, and display. Later in the century these smaller homes were gutted and refit with newly configured spaces that “simultaneously isolated and linked” the rooms, reflecting movement Building Environments: Perspectives through and “communication of segregated in Vernacular Architecture, Volume X social zones within the house” (p. 13). KENNETH A. BREISCH AND ALISON Marla R. Miller’s essay, “Labor and Liberty K. HOAGLAND (EDITORS) in the Age of Refinement,” articulates nicely University of Tennessee Press, with Herman’s piece, exploring the desire for separation of family and workers as refinement Knoxville, 2006. 477 pp., 180 figs., and gentility clashed with issues of labor and bib., index, $32.00 paper. liberty. Focusing on one household, she reveals multiple remodeling campaigns that served The newest volume in the Perspectives in to “expand and elaborate” formal spaces and Vernacular Architecture series, Building Environ- remove work areas from the public eye (p. 16). ments, continues a tradition of assembling well- This work, Miller convincingly argues, provided written and crafted essays that challenge readers greater privacy to family members and separated to think creatively about the built environment. the owners’ “peers” from workers (p. 20). Editors Kenneth Breisch and Alison Hoagland In “The Double House in New England,” have compiled a diverse, interdisciplinary, and Charles Parrott dissects the many variations of fascinating group of essays, drawn from the this ubiquitous multifamily dwelling type. He annual Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) demonstrates that while often constructed for conference, that considers the ways in which the economic reasons, this plan was not just for physical and social/cultural environment connect the lower working classes; “it was considered and react and profitably explore the multiplicity fit housing for people from virtually the entire and directionality of these interactions. Draw- social spectrum” (p. 33). Parrott characterizes ing on a wide range of topics, settings, and the double house as “an architectural middle ideas, the book is divided into four thematic ground between the row house and the detached sections that engage the “everyday buildings house …” (p. 33). and common landscapes in the United States In the final essay in Part I, “Housing the and abroad” (p. xv). The essays in these sec- Worker,” Kingston Wm. Heath addresses tions hold together well in addressing thematic another common type of multifamily housing. foci and exploring the double entendre in the His exhaustive study of Bedford, Massachusetts, book’s title: building environments or building triple-deckers in the early-20th century examines environments. a building type that was “heavily geared to a In Part I, Reexamining New England Houses, working-class market” (p. xvi). The triple-decker the authors rethink the “character and evolution” responded to the need for housing industrial of a number of common New England house workers, particularly immigrants, who sought types, using new approaches for examining work in the city’s expanding industrial sector. and understanding these places and spaces (p. With three individual apartments stacked one on xvi). In “Smaller Urban Houses of the North- top of the other, it quickly became “the city’s ern Shore,” Bernard Herman deftly charts the predominant residential building form” (p. 48). transformation of smaller urban houses in Contrasted with tenement apartment buildings 18th-century Massachusetts. At mid-century, he and row houses, the triple-decker offered a self- writes, owners tended to “expand their one-room contained, single-family-like quality, critical fire Historical Archaeology, 2007, 41(2):159–162. Permission to reprint required. 160 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 41(2) REVIEWS 161 protection, and some defense against the spread shelters. The house, they conclude, was an “artful of disease. blending of two traditions …” (p. xvii). In Part II, Buildings in their Social Contexts, In “A Service Machine,” Lisa Pfueller David- the essays span an enormous range of building son delves into large commercial hotels of the types and geographic settings, while being held 1920s, looking at the transformation of spaces together by their “explorations of architecture’s and services to accommodate new groups such interaction with its social context” (p. xvi). as “single women, automobile tourists, and local Louis P. Nelson, in “Anglican Church Building,” patrons attending social functions” (p. xvii). unravels major changes in church architecture in Adopting concepts of modern hotel manage- 17th- and 18th-century Jamaica. The Anglican ment, firms like E. M. Statler sought to wel- Church in Jamaica, he argues, was a powerful, come women guests by reshaping public spaces, local political institution, and this is reflected attract tourists with new parking garage facili- in and reflective of choices made in church ties, and “gain revenue from the steady stream design and construction. As the island’s politi- of visitors and locals taking advantage of the cal power shifted from urban centers to outlying semipublic spaces of the hotel” (p. 123). rural plantations, Nelson finds, Jamaican build- Part III, Methods for Understanding Build- ers adopted the cruciform plan, providing direct ings, contains five essays that offer a “variety visual links to the former power of the Spanish of approaches to vernacular architecture that are Catholic church and offering additional structural either somewhat unusual or have been gener- protection in the face of destructive hurricanes. ally under-explored by practitioners …” (p. The display of power and authority imbedded in xvii). Jeroen van den Hurk’s “Architecture of these new churches was critical for reinforcing New Netherland Revisited” draws on building white authority in a social setting where whites contracts to develop a more accurate sense of were in the distinct minority. the architectural landscape of early New Neth- In “The Myth of Agricultural Complacency,” erland. As the region’s extant building stock is Kirk E. Ranzetta investigates the cultural dimen- generally 18th century, van den Hurk argues that sions of tobacco cultivation in 19th-century careful reading of these legal documents pro- Tidewater Maryland. He discovers that rather vides a critical body of evidence for reconstruct- than being a static form, the tobacco barn was ing 17th-century buildings. His careful transla- continually modified by farmers adapting to tion and analysis of these records allows him to unstable market and growing conditions and speculate on the area’s framing system(s) and struggling against agricultural reforms like crop finishing details. Van den Hurk also explores diversification. Ranzetta explains that tobacco how these contracts might have been read by cultivation and curing was “an intensely indi- non-Netherlandic carpenters in the region. vidualized and often intuitive process,” and In “Impermanent Architecture in the English farmers made regular, small adjustments to their Colonies of the Eastern Caribbean,” Roger system of cultivation and curing that are evident H. Leech also mines documentary records to in their barns (p. xvii). recover early structures. Examining “compen- “In the Lodge of the Chickadee” tells an sation claims for buildings lost during a 1706 intriguing story of the late-19th- to early-20th- hurricane,” he finds “evidence for a surprising century home of Crow chief Plenty Coups. number of earthfast dwellings” in the Carib- Authors Thomas Carter, Edward Chappell, and bean (p. xvii). Leech also utilizes extensive Timothy McCleary explore the evolution of the archaeological data and an examination of the house from a simple horizontal-log building to Hermitage, a surviving earthfast building in a more complex, multiroom structure. On the Nevis, to piece together this story. He discov- interior, the house was crafted to support the ers that earthfast construction was not just for social and political organization of the tribe, impermanent structures, and may actually have while its exterior mitigated between the tribe been the preferred building style in hurricane- and federal government. While seemingly holding prone areas like the Caribbean. little in common with the traditional Crow tipi, Using a novel methodological approach, Travis the authors’ close reading uncovers features that McDonald excavates the small architectural connect Plenty Coups’ house with earlier nomadic interstices of Poplar Forest to explore everyday 160 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 41(2) REVIEWS 161 life in this household. His “Rat Housing in the material remains of these “fisheries” and Middle Virginia” utilizes architectural, archaeo- drawing on extensive ethnographic research, he logical, and ecological approaches to analyze the traces the story of how the largest freshwater material collected by and stored in rats’ nests fishery “sustained itself and adapted to changing within the house. The study demonstrates the circumstances over 125 years” (p. 218). potential for these “features” to yield artifacts Susan W. Fair’s essay, “The Northern Umiak,” (bits of fabric, paper, rope, etc.) that when examines a common skin-covered boat used by combined with other evidence provide “fleet- northern Native people. The boat was tradition-