Labouring in the Fields of the Past: Geographic Variation in New Deal Archaeology Across the Lower 48 United States

Bernard K Means

doi:10.5334/bha.261

Abstract

New Deal archaeology survey and excavation projects across the lower 48 states exhibit considerable geographic variation in their nature and extent. Part of this variation can be linked to strong regional personalities, while other variation depended on local political acceptance of or resistance to New Deal programs. The nature of the archaeological record itself influenced the amount of New Deal archaeology within a region. These factors are considered in the discussion of when and where work relief archaeological projects were conducted in the United States during the Great Depression.

Highlights

After his inauguration on March 4, 1933, U.S President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his administration actively moved to create a series of bold government initiatives—collectively known as the New Deal—to address chronic and high unemployment rates associated with the Great Depression (1929–1941), as well as a host of other economic, political, and social ills (McElvaine 1993; Watkins 1993)
The following geographic overview of New Deal archaeology contributes to the growing archaeological literature (Fagette 1996; Lyon 1996; Means 2013a) that is rescuing this important period from sometimes cursory and purely descriptive treatments, such as that in Willey and Sabloff’s (1993) A History of American Archaeology, 3rd edition, which lumps New Deal archaeology into their ‘The Classificatory-Historical Period: The Concern with Chronology (1914–1940)’
While they use a number of illustrations and examples from work relief projects, they really only mention New Deal archaeology on two pages, and that more to presage developments happening with post-World War II salvage archaeology (Willey and Sabloff 1993: 147–148)

Summary

RESEARCH PAPER

Labouring in the Fields of the Past: Geographic Variation in New Deal Archaeology Across the Lower 48 United States. New Deal archaeology survey and excavation projects across the lower 48 states exhibit considerable geographic variation in their nature and extent. Part of this variation can be linked to strong regional personalities, while other variation depended on local political acceptance of or resistance to New Deal programs. The nature of the archaeological record itself influenced the amount of New Deal archaeology within a region

Introduction

New Hampshire

Findings

Conclusions