The Archaeology of Gender in Historic America

“Essential reading in gender studies, The Archaeology of Gender in Historic America shows how historical archaeology has nuanced historiography-based understandings of American gender relations.”—Stacey Lynn Camp, author ofThe Archaeology of Citizenship

“A powerful synthesis of gender-focused archaeological research. Rotman deftly shows that the study of place and material culture can reveal diverse experiences of gender in historic North America.”—Barbara L. Voss, coeditor ofThe Archaeology of Colonialism and Archaeologies of Sexuality


Patriarchy, colonialism, and the capitalist mode of production have shaped gender through time and across many different cultures. In historic America, gendered social relations were created, codified, and reproduced through the objects used in cultural rituals, the spatial organization of houses, the construction of village landscapes, and the institutions of society, in addition to other social, ideological, economic, and political forces.

From domestic spaces to the public square, Deborah Rotman contextualizes gender and the associated social relationships from the colonial period through the twentieth century. By exploring how individuals and families negotiated and mediated these relationships, she sheds light on how prescriptive gender categories were experienced by those expected to follow them and examines how diverse groups responded to popular gender ideologies. Additionally, she reveals the ways gender and society influence each other, exposing how American normative notions of masculinity and femininity intersect with class, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and identity. Albeit, Rotman contends, they do not intersect in mutually supportive ways, ultimately giving rise to transformative social changes.

Deborah L. Rotman is director for the Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author ofHistorical Archaeology of Gendered Lives and coeditor of Shared Spaces and Divided Places: Material Dimensions of Gender Relations and the American Historical Landscape.