Of farms and women: The occupation of the Emily and Amanda Shepard farm, 1876--1920 (Warren B. Shepard, Michigan)

Landscape, architecture, and other material modifications of physical space reflect social relationships. Both the material and social relationships are explored at the Warren B. Shepard site (20CA104) in Battle Creek, Michigan during the period 1875-1920 when his daughters Emily Shepard and Amanda Shepard Goff owned the house and farm. Three related issues are addressed: (1) the relationship between material culture and gender, (2) the reflection of gendered social space in the landscape and built environment, and (3) the potential for historical archaeology, combining archaeological data, documents, and oral histories, to make a significant contribution to understanding women's lives in the past through historical ethnography. The lives of Emily and Amanda Shepard demonstrate that more than one approach to living respectably within the 19th century Cult of True Womanhood women existed. Women are not invisible in the past, but their general lack of economic capital and cultural capital beyond the home makes it more difficult to discern them. It can be easy to consider only the economic capital (even when not explicitly doing so) and/or public cultural capital, both of which lead to a focus on men. Looking beyond the public into the private and considering cultural capital, again private to the household, gives a view of how women are subsumed in household and community. An examination of the landscape of the farm is one way to approach both the private and public views the women had of themselves, and more important how they portrayed themselves to the community.