Revitalizing Tradition and Instigating Change: Foodways at the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead, c. 1871–1905

ABSTRACT

Following emancipation, relatively few African Americans held the status of landowning farmers. Within the context of racial and economic subjugation, these individuals struggled to maintain their land and autonomy as they transitioned into new lives as free citizens and independent farmers. Our research addresses how the household economy, especially foodways, proved essential to their economic mobility, rural identity, and racial uplift. We use as our case study the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead in central Texas. The archaeological evidence reveals how the Williams household reproduced tradition and instigated change within the realm of foodways. Tradition served to concretize their Southern agrarian identity and provided economic stability; change in the form of consumerism was tied to the household lifecycle and Sarah’s labor demands. Our comparison of data from three sites demonstrates how rural and urban household economies differed, as African Americans employed divergent subsistence practices that point to their heterogeneous lifeways.

KEYWORDS:

• Household economy
• tradition
• foodways
• economic mobility
• post-emancipation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Anna Agbe-Davies and three peer reviewers, including Terrance J. Martin, for their suggested revisions on earlier drafts, which helped to improve our paper. Our gratitude goes to Doug Boyd, Aaron Norment, and Sandy Hannum at PAI, and Terri Myers of Preservation Central. We enjoyed collaborating with them on the RSWF project. We’d also like to acknowledge the Texas Department of Transportation and their staff, Jon Budd and Scott Pletka. Thank you to Rachel Feit and Brandon Young who shared data on the Pennington site. We’re deeply appreciative of Gregg Pearson’s willingness to field Franklin’s many questions regarding historic cans. We also acknowledge Lissa Herzing, Sean Fairweather, and Sam Wilson for assisting with the preparation of tables and figures. Kudos to editor Chris Fennell for helping us through the process to publication. Finally, we were fortunate to work with a vibrant descendant community within the context of the RSWF project. We remain grateful for their willingness to work with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Maria Franklin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research and teaching interests include African diaspora studies, social difference and power, and public archaeology.

Nedra Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Her research examines the intersection of race and class in the lives of African Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.