W&M Featured Events
[PAST EVENT] Anthropology Grad Student Collective Speaker: Dr. Eichner, "Laundress (Her) Stories at Fort Davis"
Location
Zoom![Dr Kathrina Eichner, headshot, smiling](https://events.wm.edu/images/event_uploads/ichawkes01_2021_04_16_14_47_52.jpg)
What hidden pathways into the past have been ignored as we continue to privilege the stories of the male military elite at Western fort sites? Could shifting our focus to women and BIPOC communities open our eyes to new ways of understanding our national presence in the American frontier? This talk will focus on Eichner’s research with the Fort Davis Archaeology Project (FODAAP). Focused on domestic assemblages associated with army laundresses and Black non-commissioned officers' families, this presentation looks to reconstruct the stories of everyday life at Fort Davis, Texas during the late 19th century. Eichner will challenge the marginalized position these individuals have been assigned in heritage interpretations of the fort. Rather, she proposes that we need to reorient our perspective on military landscapes to better illuminate the complexity of frontier experiences and acknowledge the invaluable role women played as cultural brokers in the American West.
Please email Joni Carlson [[jdcarlson]] for Zoom link.
Contact
[[jdcarlson]]