CLASS, COMMUNITY, AND MATERIALITY IN A BLUE-COLLAR BALTIMORE NEIGHBORHOOD: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF HAMPDEN-WOODBERRY by Robert C. Chidester A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology and History) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Henry T. Wright, Chair Professor Howard A. Kimeldorf Professor Carla M. Sinopoli Associate Professor Martha S. Jones © Robert C. Chidester 2009 To Angela ii Acknowledgements Many people have played an important role in shaping both this dissertation and the research that went into it. In Hampden, I must of course thank the landowners who were so courageous as to allow two young archaeologists to lead a crew of teenagers in tearing up their yards: Paula Carder and John Schnabel, Mark Thistel and Robyne Lyles, Theresa and Robert Wagner, Curt and Lynn Millington, and Jeff Landsman of JBL Real Estate LLC. Without their generosity, the Hampden Community Archaeology Project (HCAP) would never have gotten off the ground. Equally important to the success of the project has been the tremendous support we have received from non-profit organizations and businesses alike in Hampden. Foremost among these is the Hampden Community Council, which has co-sponsored HCAP from the beginning. In particular, Allen Hicks and Genny Dill deserve utmost thanks for their work on our behalf. Also providing invaluable assistance and support were the Hampden Family Center, the Community Learning for Life high school program (now Independence School Local 1), Falkenhan’s Hardware, and the Rev. Robin Johnson and the parishioners of Hampden United Methodist Church. Individuals in Hampden who have lent their support in various ways include Tom Ensor, Beverly Sciezska, and Bill Harvey. The residents of Hampden and Woodberry more generally also deserve my thanks for supporting HCAP over the past five years. Specifically, the teenagers who participated in our summer excavations (either through the Baltimore City Youthworks iii Program or the Indpendence School) made the project run and constantly reminded us of the reality that archaeology alone cannot remedy the damage that nearly a half century of neglect of the urban social infrastructure in the United States has caused. We were also extremely fortunate to have a steady stream of local volunteers who lent their time to help us excavate and wash artifacts; even before that, the many people who turned out for a series of public history workshops organized by David Gadsby in the fall of 2004 convinced us of the viability of a community archaeology program in Hampden- Woodberry. Finally, and not least importantly, first Erin Mannion and then David and Joanna Gadsby were kind enough to provide me with discount lodgings for three summers while I conducted my fieldwork in Hampden. Funding and in-kind support for HCAP has come from a variety of sources, all of them essential both to the success of the program and to my ability to be a part of it: the Arts of Citizenship program, the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History, and the Rackham Graduate School, all at the University of Michigan; the Department of Anthropology and the College of Arts and Sciences at American University; the Cosmos Club of Washington D.C.; the Center for Heritage Resource Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park; the Sociological Initiatives Foundation; the William G. Baker Fund of the Baltimore Community Foundation; Struever Bros., Eccles and Rouse; the Baltimore Youthworks Program; the Maryland Humanities Council; and the Maryland Historical Trust. Librarians, archivists, and other researchers in both Baltimore and Ann Arbor have provided invaluable assistance in locating sources and making them available to me for study. Librarians and archivists include James Reaves of the Lovely Lane Museum & iv Archives of Methodist History in Baltimore; the staff at the Maryland Room in the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore; the staff at the Hampden branch of the Pratt Library; the librarians and archivists at Maryland Historical Society Library in Baltimore; the staff of the Interlibrary Loan Office at the University of Michigan; the librarians at the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland, College Park; the archivists in charge of the Labadie Collection at the Special Collections Library, University of Michigan; the staff of both the Baltimore City and Baltimore County Land Records Offices; the staff at the Baltimore County Historical Society in Cockeysville; and Richard Parsons of the Baltimore County Legacy Web. John McGrain, the world’s foremost expert on the industrial history and archaeology of the Baltimore region, was extremely generous in sharing his time, energy, extensive personal knowledge and copies of items from his personal collection of primary source materials pertaining to Hampden-Woodberry. In particular, he provided me with copies of 19th-century newspaper articles that shed a great deal of light on the history of the Mackey Site while we were excavating it. Mary Rizzo, currently at the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, has also been more than generous in sharing her research with us and has been a great sounding board for some of our ideas about gentrification in Hampden. Angela Jancius, a Hampden native who also just happens to be an anthropologist, kindly shared some of her insights into community dynamics with me. Intellectual and practical support for HCAP in general and my research in particular has come from numerous individuals in both Maryland and Michigan. From Maryland the list includes Lena Mortensen, then of the Center for Heritage Resource Studies; Dr. Paul Shackel, Dr. Mark Leone, Jennifer Babiarz, Matt Palus, Amelia v Chisholm, and Jeff Snider of the Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, College Park; and Charlie Hall of the Maryland Historical Trust. HCAP has also been extremely fortunate to have a number of highly talented graduate student interns from the Master of Applied Anthropology program, undergraduate work-study students, and both graduate and undergraduate student volunteers from the University of Maryland, College Park. Our M.A.A. interns included John Molenda, Jolene L.U. Smith, and Abby Jackson. Janet Donlin, Daniel Fitzpatrick, Maria Grenchik, Vanessa Nagengast, and Gennadiy Shoykhedbrod all spent considerable time in the lab for us as work-study students. Peter Busher, Andra Dennet, Sneha Dhanopal, Lauren Earl, Christoff Funches, Beverley Ginley, Laura Hawkins, Charlotte King, Patrick Minnich, Zachary Singer, Abbie Sosin, Yesenia Trejo, and Jane Wilson provided us with invaluable volunteer labor, without which the lab processing and analysis of the archaeological collections from Hampden could not have been completed. In Ann Arbor the following individuals read and commented on earlier papers, portions of which have been incorporated into the current dissertation: Drs. David William Cohen, Julie Skurski, David Pedersen, and Scott Kurashige; and Janam Mukherjee, Purvi Mehta, Federico Helfgott, Dana Agmon, Josh Coene, Heloise Finch, Christian Williams, Janak Rai, Guillermo Salas Carreño, Rachel Betzen, Clay Howard, and Monica Kim. Equally importantly, my fellow students in the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History have provided a wonderful intellectual atmosphere and warm friendship despite the fact that as the only archaeologist I have been somewhat of an interloper in the program. I cannot imagine a more supportive group of friends and colleagues than my fellow members of the 2004 cohort: Janam Mukherjee, Purvi Mehta, vi Federico Helfgott, Dana Agmon, Josh Coene, and Dan Birchok. Outside of my cohort, Andrea Wright, Stephen Sparks, Christian Williams, and Heloise Finch-Boyer deserve special mention. The faculty members who have been willing to mentor me during my time at the University of Michigan have all made me a better scholar. Dr. Norm Yoffee helped guide me through my first year in the Anthro-History Program; Drs. Tom Fricke and Matt Lassiter were kind enough to serve on my Preliminary Examinations committee; and Drs. Howard Kimeldorf, Martha Jones and Carla Sinopoli generously agreed to serve on my dissertation committee, despite all of the reasons they could have used to politely turn me down. Dr. Henry Wright, my advisor and dissertation chair, deserves special thanks for guiding me through to completion, providing advice and encouragement whenever it was needed (even when he was on another continent). I would also like to single out Diana Denney, whose official job title is Graduate Student Services Associate in the Department of History. As the person responsible for making sure that the Anthro-History program runs smoothly, however, she should really be called She Who Knows Everything and Can Do Anything. On more than one occasion Diana has saved me from making a costly registration or benefits enrollment mistake; she has painstakingly guided me through the intricacies of the requirements for the program; and she has located and been willing to creatively combine sources of funding to keep me afloat. I can say with confidence that despite everyone else’s hard work, without Diana’s skills, expertise, and dedication, the Anthro-History program would long ago have ceased to function as a viable academic unit at the University of Michigan. vii David Gadsby, my research partner for nearly five years now, has been the real driving force behind HCAP. As I looked on somewhat helplessly from Ann Arbor, Dave put in most of the hard labor to make his dream of a community archaeology project in his own neighborhood a reality. He provided immense amounts of his own time and money to make the project work; I have merely tagged along for the ride. Intellectually, our slightly different understandings of the history and current social dynamics in Hampden have pushed me to think harder and more imaginatively about the neighborhood and its people. Academically, our writing partnership has proved to be a rewarding experience. Personally, his friendship has made the whole process easier and more fun.