Exhibiting the Native American Other: The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition and Commodified Racism

The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (AYP) not only reflected the frontier culture of Seattle, Washington, in 1909, it also revealed a deeply ingrained set of values within American culture that deemed Native individuals (the Other) as inferior. This label of “inferior” is visible in the various exhibitions of Native American objects at the AYP, which also expose deliberate expressions of hierarchy and the association of culture with commodity. The visual record that remains from the AYP includes souvenir items, official photographs, and postcards, which, when viewed as a cross section of fair imagery, suggest a relationship between Georg Simmel’s theory of objective/subjective culture and commodified racism.     

Preserved epiphytes as an archaeological resource in pre-industrial vernacular buildings

The vernacular building tradition is an established source of information about historic woodlands and woodland management in Britain. We build on this resource by recognizing the information content derived from the tree-dwelling epiphyte communities of lichens and mosses, which are preserved on the bark of historic wooden building materials. We report on a first analysis of preserved epiphytes identified from six regions across lowland England. Seventy-eight vernacular buildings were surveyed for the presence of bark and preserved epiphytes. We demonstrate three novel and important findings: the prevalence of bark, substantial preservation of epiphytes, and their application as an archaeological tool for the reconstruction of historic environments. Future analyses will build on epiphyte species composition and abundance data to examine changes in historic environments across lowland England.