Manufacturing identity: Material culture and social change in seventeenth century Virginia

This dissertation explores the relationship between material culture and social change in seventeenth century Virginia, drawing on a body of data from both archaeological and documentary sources, and with particular emphasis on material from a site at Flowerdew Hundred in Tidewater Virginia. Manufacturing activity and architecture are the foci of this study, which relates changes in these material forms to their social and cultural context.; Perhaps the most visible material change was in the architecture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, which became more durable and permanent in nature. These changes were not only a reflection of social adjustments that had already transpired, but also a symbolic statement that was used to create and maintain new social boundaries. The inception of manufacturing activity, while in one respect a response to economic pressure, was also used in the same manner as was architecture. It became a statement of independence and a means of manipulating group relations.; The use of material culture as a symbolic method of establishing and maintaining group boundaries is discussed in terms of the unique context of seventeenth century Virginia. The frontier nature of the society and the unique configuration of social, cultural, economic and environmental conditions resulted in the use of certain forms of material culture in the establishment and maintenance of a new social and cultural group--that of 'Virginians' rather than 'Englishmen in Virginia'. Comparison is also made with other frontier societies to establish the commonality of this relationship between material culture and social change.