Using Landscape, Walls, and Niddy Noddies in a Repressive Culture

            For this week, Upton and Weyeneth examine two different period of architectural segregation spanning from the 18^th century to the mid-20^th century, respectively. Thus, these readings appear closely related in content. My assigned chapter, “Willie-Nillie, Niddy-Noddy” in Ulrich’s The Age of Homespun, deals with a vastly different topic: spinning in late-18^th century New England. However, a theme of material culture in a restrictive or repressive society appears to stretch across the content of these analyses.

           

            To start, Weyeneth analyzes the relationship between architecture and segregation. The reader discovers a multitude of avenues through with architecture promoted segregation. The author communicates how social customs, in some ways, strongly influences segregation in some buildings. Weyeneth also notes that, while there was a sense of strict segregation in some areas, others were more malleable to the social practices of the time. Additionally, a struggle between legal mandates and social customs during a building’s construction in this period creates a confusing contemporary take on its composition. One interesting example that I was unaware of before this reading is the Pentagon, where one notes influences from modernist architecture (undecorated, functional, etc.) as well as influences of segregation, particularly in the number of bathrooms (enough were constructed to separate by both gender and skin color).

            Upton reflects on the roots of these segregationist attitudes by examining housing and landscapes in 18^th century Virginia. Although, the author notes the arrangement of the interior of a slave quarters, he reminds the reader that the exterior, particularly the landscape work, can act as an extension of its character. At times, this extension interacts with the landscape of the dominant white landscape of the plantation owner. Resultantly, this interaction has the potential to birth a landscape struggling to extend the home’s black interior with already established, dominant, white landscape exterior. At the heart of this struggle, in most cases, was a combination of the limiting freedom to customize the landscape in an overtly unique way and the reflexive nature of plantation slaves. These characteristics result in, what Upton calls, “peculiarities” in a continued dominant white landscape outside slave’s quarters. To this end, understanding the limits placed on slave expression (though not in all cases, see: Christina Campbell’s relaxed approach, p. 365) and their lack of means suggests that, if given the opportunity, these quarters may’ve adorned different landscape characteristics.

            Ulrich’s chapter continues this week’s theme of material culture within a restrictive society. My focus in this chapter is on a woman’s relationship with patriarchy and the influence it has on spinning production. Although the author notes that spinning fabrics at a quick pace created a mini-celebrity status for a woman (p. 206), these stories paint a picture of devout, hard-working women striving to help a greater cause. This cause can manifest itself in micro-level familial duties to a husband or father as well as a macro-level devotion to the church or political movement. Ulrich exemplifies this example quite neatly in her summation of the differences between the Sons and Daughters of Liberty: “While the New England Sons of Liberty indulged in rum, rhetoric, and roast pig, her Daughters worked from sunup to sundown to prove their commitment to ‘the cause of liberty and industry’” (p. 183).