Landscape and Social Relations at Charleston Townhouse Sites (1770–1850)

Restoration projects at Charleston townhouse properties, both public and private, have provided opportunities for archaeological exploration on a variety of scales. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these properties were the homes of wealthy planters and merchants and enslaved African Americans, who lived and worked in the service buildings and work yard. The inter-dependence of these diverse occupants, their daily affairs, and the landscape elements under their purview has been revealed in the research of scholars from a host of disciplines, including archaeology. Townhouse compounds included support structures and activity areas required to meet the range of daily life affairs, from the necessary to the luxurious. While the front of the house, and the formal garden, presented a well-ordered façade, the work yard housed the facilities for the necessities of daily life, in an often dirty, noisy, and unordered space. The deliberate separation of space and placement of specialized service buildings and their occupants created an urban landscape suitable to the social values, as well as physical needs, of the townhouse owners. Thus, owner and slave lived in a compound that was physically close, but socially distinct. Archaeological case studies are used here to explore the racial power dynamics embodied in the urban townhouse landscape. The archaeological mixing of material from master and slave is, however, a material reflection of the racial power dynamics played out in constricted urban spaces.     

Symposium: Australia–US Economic Relations and the Regional Balance of PowerAustralia–US Economic Relations following the 2005 Free Trade Agreement

The Australia–United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) came into force on 1 January 2005. Australia's exports to the US have since stagnated, while imports into and US investments in Australia have surged. This article analyses Australia–US economic relations with a focus on trade and investment flows. In addition, it examines the capital raising by US investment banks for these projects. The analysis traces the effects on the relationship of the Global Financial Crisis, the resources boom in Australia and the rise of the Australian dollar.

澳美自由贸易协定2005年元旦起生效。自那以来,澳大利亚对美出口止步不前,而来自美国的进口和投资却一路上扬。本文考察了澳美经济关系,重点分析了贸易和投资流。此外作者还研究了美国投资银行为那些项目的融资。以往分析研究探索了全球金融危机、澳大利亚起源开发热以及澳大利亚元升值三者之间关系所受的影响。     

Industrial Building Design and Economic Context: The Railway Freighthouse in Chicago, 1850–1925

Abstract

The rapidly increasing scale and broadening scope of railway freight operations in Chicago between 1850 and 1925 offer a unique opportunity to study the impact of factors affecting North American freighthouse design. Early freighthouses were small, single-storey brick and mill buildings designed to handle the straightforward exchange of freight shipments, while later freighthouses were large, multi-storey, concrete and steel structures featuring mechanised freight handling systems. A simple analytical framework for studying factors influential in freighthouse size, function and design is provided. Market factors include developments in the railway freight marketplace, notably freight traffic growth and the need to offer storage and warehousing services. Supply factors include those factors that limited or facilitated changes in design resulting from changes in the marketplace, notably local freight delivery costs, increases in land values, advances in construction materials and labour-saving freight handling technologies.