The papers in this volume represent the results of
a conference on material culture held at the Smithsonian Institution. As
the title suggests, and Kingery states in the preface and introduction,
the goal of the conference and this volume, as well as its predecessor
History from Things: Essays on Material Culture (Steven Lubar &
W. David Kingery eds., Smithsonian Press, 1993), is to establish a common
ground for discussion and introduce a relatively new and distinct multi-field
disciplinematerial culture studies. This particular volume was intended
to bring forward the methods and theories common to material culture studies
in a variety of specialist fields, and legitimize the appellation material
culturalist. The book is divided into four parts: part one, Paradigms for
Material Culture Studies (chapter 2); part two, Material Culture in the
History of Technology (chapters 3 to 5); part three, Formation Processes
(chapters 6 to 11); and part four, Materials Science in Material Culture
Studies (chapters 12 to 15).
In the first part, Jules Prown focuses on material
culture studies in art history. He examines the division of materialists
(systematic scholars interested in object attributes introduced by the
maker) and culturalists (humanists concerned with aesthetics and cultural
belief systems unconsciously introduced by the maker), and their common
focus, the object as evidence for interpretation. By recognizing the two
opposing camps of ëhardí and ësoftí material culture studies, Prown suggests
that the gap between the two can be bridged, and that in combination and
through collaborative undertakings these two perspectives would interact
synergistically, producing results that would far outweigh those from individual
and separate studies.
Part two presents three essays concerned with the
application of material culture studies to the history of technology. In
chapter 3, Steven Lubar suggests that historians of technology must go
beyond the classificatory aspect of material culture and its embodiment
of technological knowledge, change and achievement. They must also see
and examine the larger issues embedded in technology, what he calls the
ëbig questions of American history,í which encompass the conscious and
unconscious contributions of the makers and users of material culture and
technological things. These include culture change, social change, class,
ethnicity, gender, and race. Joseph Corn, in chapter 4, presents an empirical
study of journal articles by and for historians of technology. He notes
that only 30 percent or so of the scholarly papers offer any evidence of
the actual study of artifacts, that the majority of historians rely on
secondary evidence of those whom they consider more technically competent
than themselves (engineers and others who have primary hands-on experience
with objects). Corn hypothesizes that this lack of personal experience
or for that matter, the limited or practically non-existent testimony of
personal interest and interaction with artifacts by these authors, has
contributed to the current poor regard of material culture studies by many
scholars. Ruth Oldenziel brings a feminist perspective to technology studies
in chapter 5. She suggests the concentration on material artifacts and
devices in technological histories is the result of social and cultural
trends established in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and
that these studies, by extension are gender-oriented and male-dominated.
But, with the rise of information systems and the shift to technology as
the ëconfiguration of knowledge, things, organizations and people,í gender-biased
interpretations diminish and the role of women as active participants in
the ëcreation of technical artifactsí becomes evident.
In the third section of the book, Michael Schiffer
leads the discussion of formation processes that culminate in object collections
and render such collections available for study. He begins by establishing
a theoretical context for the discussion of formation processes in chapter
6, and brings to bear much of his own work in this area. One of the first
steps in the interpretation of past behaviors through artifacts, according
to Schiffer, is to understand ëthe pathways that link past activities to
their surviving traces in material entities extant today.í Schiffer then
illustrates his point in the succeeding chapter with an example of shirt-pocket
radios with subminiature tubes. He demonstrates the importance of the radios
themselves as well as the biases inherent in their survival. Kristian Kristiansen
in chapter 8 looks at the historical processes by which archaeological
collections come to be included in the Danish museum collections. He discusses
both the destruction of archaeological sites and the formation of museum
collections, and their direct connection to social and economic development
over the last two centuries. In chapter 9, Marjorie Akin illustrates her
discussion of small private collections with coins. She examines how and
why private collections are assembled and kept, and then how these same
collections are subsequently dispersed and reformed. Catherine and Don
Fowler discuss the formation of ethnographic museum collections in chapter
10. They illustrate their case study with artifacts collected from Native
Americans in the Great Basin. Nancy Parezo, in chapter 11, concentrates
on the formation processes in the archival records surrounding ethnographic
collections. She points out that documentation (field notes, photographs
and such) and the objects themselves are treated differently; the former
are often considered personal possessions, the latter are treated as institutional
property. As a consequence, the two rarely end up at the same place. She
argues that this separation of documentation from the collections themselves
often means that undocumented collections are of limited value in answering
many research questions.
The final part of the book contains four essays
which examine the ways in which materials science contributes to material
culture studies. David Kingery, in chapters 12 and 13, establishes a context
for materials science in the study and interpretation of material culture.
By examining material structure and properties, one can more easily discuss
performance effectiveness and production activities, and draw inferences
on the human activities of design, creation and manufacture as well as
use and function. David Killickís essay in chapter 14 focuses on a realm
of human experience which is poorly recorded in written texts - the development
and growth of technology, the processing of raw materials, and the production
of material artifacts. His method of analysis is microscopy, in particular
high magnification studies, which takes the investigator into a whole new
realm of analysis. Such techniques, he goes on to say, have revolutionized
studies on ceramics, glass, glazes, and metals. Michael Tite, in chapter
15, shows how dating methods have revolutionized archaeology, the difficulties
of provenance studies, and the analytical approaches to examine organic
residues and use-wear patterns on tools and cooking vessels.
The book promises much to those interested in the
study of material culture, in particular it attempts to set forth a solid
theoretical and methodological foundation from which future material culture
studies can proceed. Yet, there is nothing new in this volume except the
particularistic case studies that were presented. The continuing dialogue
and florescence of material culture studies that should be generated by
a book such as this are left with little direction and a less than solid
foundation from which to move forward. If, on the other hand, one is looking
for guidance and recipes with which to examine specific material culture
elements, this book is a near panoply of examples.