Two new books on the historical archaeology of the Old West from the University of Nebraska Press—Charlotte K. Sunseri's Alliance Rises in the West (2020) and Mark Warner and Margaret Purser's Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens (2017)—definitively establish the importance and relevance of research into nineteenth- and twentieth-century sites in North America west of the Mississippi River. In a refreshing break from historical archaeology's seemingly long-held fixation on early settlements along the East Coast, these works prioritize the quality of insight into the past above any necessarily early chronology or close proximity to a seminal colonial settlement. It is worth noting that these two books do not succeed in providing significant insights into specific histories and broader understandings of the human condition in spite of the late occupation dates and decidedly western longitude of their case studies; instead, they are important contributions precisely because of these qualities. The authors and editors expose that the disciplinary bias historical archaeologists fought against for generations in archaeology writ large—that their sites were too late, too well documented, or too far removed from inaugural settlements that grew into massive civilizations—is equally flawed when employed by practitioners working on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century eastern US sites against those working on sites in the American West from the 1800s and 1900s.
Rather than stop after making the assertion that late Western sites have something to offer scholars and students of the past, Sunseri's book and Warner and Purser's edited volume make an intriguing pivot to show that there indeed are certain qualities to these Old West sites that are qualitatively different from earlier and more eastern locales. In discussing these distinctions, they offer new ways of thinking about the material past tied to different conceptions of space as more boundless, people as more mobile, and social groupings as more dynamic. This analytical move is somewhat difficult, given that the authors must simultaneously reject the notion that there is anything about being late and Western that diminishes their historical archaeological contribution, while also embracing the idea that these Old West sites are different enough to offer insights that do not necessarily arise in the examination of earlier East Coast sites. It is a fine line to walk—arguing for inclusion on the grounds of sameness while also making a case for inherent difference—but I believe that Sunseri, Walker, and Purser are successful in this analytical endeavor.
Sunseri's book is an intricate case study that focuses on the complex interactions between Native Kudzedika Paiute, overseas Chinese, and Euro-American laborers at the industrial town of Mono Mills, north of Mono Lake and near the California/Nevada border, during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Although the research is deeply embedded in the details of this small multiethnic town, Sunseri broadens her discussion to examine the duplicitous and dualistic economic gains of the Gilded Age. She pinpoints rampant and intentional historical racism, inequality, corruption, and exploitation, and then situates overseas Chinese and Native Paiute responses as keen survival strategies. Sunseri uses multiple lines of historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to show that complex multiethnic community building at Mono Mills was the result of nuanced alliances and solidarity among laborers across cultural lines.
In crafting an argument that historical community building at this multiethnic company town was aligned primarily with class instead of ethnicity, Alliance Rises in the West employs a patient narrative that builds interpretations along multiple lines of evidence through five chapters. The first is an introduction to historical archaeologies of inequality, with an emphasis on perspectives and experiences of laborers. Chapter 2 draws on intersectional theory to examine potential historical identity nexuses between class, race, and gender. Chapter 3 focuses on parallel experiences of overseas Chinese and Native Paiute workers, especially in terms of marginalization and as targets of racial hostility. The fourth chapter centers on household archaeology and analyses of a blended material culture that reveal race-based collective action. It details spectacular archaeological discoveries of pine-nut caches in Chinatown households and imported Chinese ceramics in Paiute neighborhoods and contextualizes how these finds transcend simple assimilation models. Sunseri's final chapter unites the previous sections and summarizes how class played an intricate role in building alliances among laborers in historical Mono Mills.
Alliance Rises in the West is cohesive, compact, and convincing. The text is at its best when pinpointing important historical and archaeological parallels between the lived overseas Chinese and Native Paiute experiences. At times, pertinent concepts are introduced but not fully explored, such as the role of gift exchange in the formation and maintenance of alliances, which could serve as an important contribution to Sunseri's argument concerning class-based community building. Regardless, her work is a well-researched, insightful, and clear examination of daily life in historical Mono Mills and class struggles during the Gilded Age.
Mark Warner and Margaret Purser's edited volume, Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens, is an ambitious work that incorporates many of the most pressing issues in historical archaeology to research of the Old West. Rather than assembling a volume of isolated case studies, the editors succeed in making connections between scattered sites and structures by appreciating broader patterns driven by analyses of landscapes, social networks, and economic factors. The essays demonstrate the rich potential of multifaceted analytical tools and intriguingly different lines of evidence in a constant goal of finding a voice for the voiceless of the past.
Consisting of an introduction, 11 chapters by 12 authors, and an epilogue, Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens is organized into three thematic sections: (1) Economics and Economies, (2) Archaeologies of Race and Racism, and (3) Reassessing the West. Part I begins with Margaret Purser's examination of boom-and-bust economies in the Old West, with a particular focus on how the dearth of cash and dangers of overspecialization led to an emphasis on social ties, intensive labor, material refurbishment, portability, and economic diversity. James P. Delgado builds on these ideas in his analysis of urban development in San Francisco during nineteenth-century globalization. His intriguing study of buried ships that served as warehouse storage lockers reveals that San Francisco was on an independent nonfrontier trajectory that defied simple classification as a mining camp, government outpost, railroad settlement, or farm town. Robert J. Cromwell examines consumer choice at Fort Vancouver in Washington state but expands traditional analyses with measures of diversity to gain greater appreciation of context at these multicultural sites. The initial section of the volume ends with Mark Walker's understated yet impactful analysis of transient labor, which brings to life the rich and complex history of hoboes, migrants, refugees, and other displaced individuals in informal campsites across the Old West. Part II centers on archaeological issues of race and racism, and it starts with Joe Watkins's examination of ethnic identity of Indigenous Oklahomans in historical multiethnic contexts. He warns of uncritical use of ethnic markers and presence/absence cultural assimilation models, and instead presents a fluid interpretation based on degrees of integration. Kelly J. Dixon and Carrie Smith's analysis of nineteenth-century Chinese woodcutter camps and anti-Chinese movements reveals how these logger camps were tied to larger Chinese networks, emphasizing how even rural and seemingly isolated locales were deeply intertwined with international economic connections. Douglas E. Ross's chapter offers a rich archaeological comparison between Japanese settlements and Chinese bunkhouses at fishing villages in British Columbia. This important work identifies key distinctions between transnational and diasporic communities by interweaving analyses of differential recent national histories with archaeological measures of value and diversity. Part II concludes with Bonnie J. Clark's powerful discussion of community collaboration, dispersed descendant groups, and unpopular history in her archaeological work on a Colorado Japanese internment camp. The volume's final section on countering prominent myths of the Old West includes three chapters and begins with Minette Church's reassessment of the Santa Fe Trail in the historical and spatial context of preexisting multiethnic trade networks. Timothy James Scarlett then details the Kafka-esque politics of past and present in his Utah Pottery Project. Mark Warner finishes Part III by replacing the persistent Old West myth of gritty deprivation and hardship with one of status dictated by Victorian luxuries. Each of these chapters challenges time-honored American lore and explores the volatility and intrigue of contesting heritage.
Each chapter in Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens is engaging and even poetic. These humanistic portrayals of the past do not always lead directly to archaeological rigor and controlled scientific studies, but this volume never made a goal of standardization. In fact, its lack of methodological cohesiveness shows its diverse applicability to nearly every endeavor in historical archaeology.
Both Alliance Rises in the West and Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens are refreshing and enlightening texts. In knocking down temporal and spatial walls within the field of historical archaeology that isolated practitioners working on sites in the Old West for decades, could these works be a harbinger that the discipline is ready to let go of equally entrenched paradigmatic barriers as well?
