Abstract
Our investigations into President James Madison’s Grandmother, Frances Taylor Madison, found few records, which is typical for women in 18th-century society. Widowed in 1732, she ran the Montpelier plantation for the first thirty years of its existence. Using a combination of archaeological evidence, a scattering of court records, and information on her oldest son (James Madison, Sr.), we build a case for her intersectional identity through gender, sexuality, generational deference, and race within paternalistic society.
Résumé de Recherche
Nos recherches sur Frances Taylor Madison, la grand-mère du Président James Madison, n'ont permis de découvrir que très peu d'éléments, ce qui est courant pour les femmes de la société du 18ème siècle. Devenue veuve en 1732, elle a dirigé la plantation Montpelier durant les trente premières années de son existence. Nous appuyant sur un ensemble combinant des preuves archéologiques, quelques dossiers judiciaires et des informations sur son fils le plus âgé (James Madison, Sr.), nous construisons un argumentaire à l'appui de son identité intersectionnelle par le biais du genre, de la sexualité, de la déférence générationnelle et de la race au sein d'une société paternaliste.
Resumen
Nuestras investigaciones sobre la abuela del presidente James Madison, Frances Taylor Madison, encontraron pocos registros, lo cual es típico de las mujeres en la sociedad del siglo XVIII. Enviudada en 1732, dirigió la plantación de Montpelier durante los primeros treinta años de su existencia. Usando una combinación de evidencia arqueológica, escasos registros judiciales e información sobre su hijo mayor (James Madison, Sr.), construimos un caso para su identidad interseccional a través del género, la sexualidad, la deferencia generacional y la raza dentro de la sociedad paternalista.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
(Image courtesy of University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities and Chad Keller, Georgia State University)
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, N. (2004). Finding the space between spatial boundaries and social dynamics: The archaeology of nested households. In K. S. Barile & J. C. Brandon (Eds.), Household chores and household choices: Theorizing the domestic sphere in historical archaeology (pp. 109–120). University of Alabama Press.
Barile, K. S., & Brandon, J. C. (2004). Household chores and household choices: Theorizing the domestic sphere in historical archaeology. University of Alabama Press.
Battle-Baptiste, W. (2011). Black feminist archaeology. Routledge.
Beaudry, M. (2004). Doing housework: New approaches to the archaeology of households. In K. S. Barile & J. C. Brandon (Eds.), Household chores and household choices: Theorizing the domestic sphere in historical archaeology (pp. 254–262). University of Alabama Press.
Beaudry, M. (2011). Stitching women’s lives: Interpreting the artifacts of sewing and needlework. In M. Beaudry & J. Symonds (Eds.), Interpreting the early modern world: Transatlantic perspectives (pp. 143–158). Springer.
Breen, T. H. (1985). Tobacco culture: The mentality of the great tidewater planters on the eve of revolution. Princeton University Press.
Brown, K. M. (1996). Good wives, nasty wenches, and anxious patriarchs: Gender, race, and power in colonial Virginia. Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC.
Brumfield, E. (1992). Distinguished Lecture in archaeology: Breaking and entering the ecosystem: Gender, class, and faction steal the show. American Anthropologist, 94(3), 551–567.
Carson, C., & Lounsbury, C. R. (Eds.). (2013). The Chesapeake house: Architectural investigation by colonial Williamsburg. The University of North Carolina Press.
Chambers, D. (1991). The making of Montpelier: Col. James Madison and the Development of a Piedmont Plantation, 1741 to 1774. Masters Thesis, University of Virginia, VA.
Chambers, D. (2005). Murder at Montpelier, Igbo Africans in Virginia. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS.
Conger, V. B. (2009). The widows’ might: Widowhood and gender in early British America. New York University Press.
Conkey, M. W., & Spector, J. D. (1984). Archaeology and the study of gender. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, 7, 1–38.
Delle, J. (1999). The landscapes of class negotiation on coffee plantations in the blue mountains of Jamaica: 1790–1850. Historical Archaeology., 33(1), 136–158.
Epperson, T. W. (1999). Constructing difference: The social and spatial order. In T. Singleton (Ed.), “I, Too, Am America” Archaeological studies of African-American life (pp. 159–172). University Press of Virginia.
Franklin, M. (2001). A black feminist-inspired archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology, 1, 108–125.
Ghisleni, L., Jordan, A. M., & Fioccoprile, E. (2016). “Binary Binds”: Deconstructing sex and gender dichotomies in archaeological practice. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 23(3), 765–787.
Groover, M. D. (2003). An archaeological study of rural capitalism and material life: The Gibbs farmstead in Southern Appalachia, 1790–1920. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Groover, M. D. (2004). Household succession as a catalyst of landscape change. Historical Archaeology, 38(4), 25–43.
Hatch, D. B. (2015). An historical archaeology of early manhood in the potomac river valley of Virginia, 1645–1730. PhD Thesis. University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Hudgins, C. L. (1990). Robert “King” Carter and the landscape of tidewater Virginia in the eighteenth century. In W. M. Kelso & R. Most (Eds.), Earth patterns: Essays in landscape archaeology (pp. 59–70). University Press of Virginia.
Insoll, T. (2007). Introduction: ConFigureuring identities in archaeology. In T. Insoll (Ed.), The archaeologies of identity: A reader (pp. 1–19). Routledge.
Isaac, R. (1982). The transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790. The University of North Carolina Press.
Jones-Rogers, S. (2019). They were her property: White women as slave owners in American south. Yale University Press.
Kern, S. A. (2010). The Jeffersons at Shadwell. Yale University Press.
Ketchum, R. (1971). James Madison: A biography. University of Virginia Press.
Kulikoff, A. (1978). The origins of Afro-American society in tidewater Maryland and Virginia, 1700–1790. William and Mary Quarterly, 35, 226–259.
Kulikoff, A. (1986). Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680–1800. University of North Carolina Press.
Leone, M. P. (1984). Interpreting ideology in historical archaeology: the William Paca garden in Annapolis, Maryland. In D. Miller & C. Tilley (Eds.), Ideology, power, and prehistory (pp. 25–35). Cambridge University Press.
Lounsbury, C. (1994). An illustrated glossary of early southern architecture and landscape. The University Press of Virginia.
Matthaei, J. A. (1982). An economic history of women in america, women’s work, the sexual division of labor, and the development of capitalism. Schocken Books.
Meskell, L., & Preucel, R. W. (2008). Identities. In L. Meskell & R. W. Preucel (Eds.), Companion to social archaeology (pp. 121–141). Blackwell Publishing.
Miller, A. (1990). Historic structure report: Montpelier, Orange County, Virginia. Phase II: Documentary evidence regarding the Montpelier House 1723–1983. Prepared for Montpelier,. Unpublished report on File at Montpelier, Montpelier Station, Virginia.
Miller, A. (1988). Antebellum homes of Orange county. Moss Publications.
Miller, A. (2001). The short life and strange death of Ambrose Madison. Orange County Historical Society.
Mintz, S., & Kellogg, S. (1988). Domestic revolutions: A social history of American family life. The Free Press.
Morgan, P. D. (1988). Slave life in piedmont Virginia, 1720–1800. In L. Green, P. D. Morgan, & J. B. Russo (Eds.), Colonial Chesapeake society (pp. 433–484). The University of North Carolina Press.
Neiman, F. D. (1978). Domestic architecture of the Clifts Plantation Site: The social context of early Virginia building. Northern Neck Historical Magazine, 28, 3096–3128.
Reeves, M. B. and Fogle, K. (2007). Excavations at the Madison's First Home, Mount Pleasant (1723–1800): Summary of Archaeological Investigations 1997–2004. Manuscript, The Montpelier Foundation, Montpelier Archaeology Department, Montpelier Station, Virginia.
Reeves, M. B. (2003). Reinterpreting Manassas: The 19th century African-American community at Manassas National Battlefield Park. Historical Archaeology, 37(3), 124–137.
Sanford, D. W. (1994). The archaeology of plantation slavery in piedmont Virginia: Context and process. In P. Shackel & B. Little (Eds.), The historic Chesapeake (pp. 115–130). Smithsonian Institution Press.
Scott, E. M. (1994) (Ed). Those of little note: Gender, race and class in historical archaeology. University of Arizona Press
Smith, J. H. (2017). Adorned identities: An archaeological perspective on race and self-presentation in 18th-century Virginia. PhD Thesis. University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Spotsylvania County Will Book A (1732). Inventory of Ambrose Madison, pp. 183–186. In Miller, A. L. (2001) The short life and strange death of Ambrose Madison, Orange County Historical Society, Orange, VA, pp. 61–66.
Spencer-Wood, S.M. (forthcoming). Empowering social justice and equality by developing a feminist intersectionality framework to increase the inclusiveness of detroit historical markers. In Trunzo, J., Spencer-Wood, S. and Wohlke, S. (ed) Archaeologies special issue on Intersectionality in Archaeology.
Spencer-Wood, S. M. (1992). A feminist program for non-sexist archaeology. In L. Wandsnider (Ed.), Quandaries and quests: Visions of archaeology’s future (pp. 234–44). S. Illinois U. Press.
Spencer-Wood, S. M. (2004). What difference does feminist theory make in researching households? A commentary. In K. S. Barile & J. C. Brandon (Eds.), Household chores and household choices: Theorizing the domestic sphere in historical archaeology (pp. 235–53). University of Alabama Press.
Speth, L. E. (1983). More than her “Thirds”: Wives and widows in colonial Virginia. In C. Berkin (Ed.), Women, family, and community in colonial america: Two perspectives (pp. 5–41). The Haworth Press and the Institute for Research in History.
Sturtz, L. L. (2002). Within her power: Propertied women in colonial Virginia. Routledge.
Upton, D. (1984). White and black landscapes in eighteenth-century Virginia. Places, 2(2), 59–72.
Upton, D. (1990). Imagining the early Virginia landscape. In W. M. Kelso & R. Most (Eds.), Earth patterns: Essays in landscape archaeology (pp. 71–88). University Press of Virginia.
Voss, B. (2008). The archaeology of ethnogenesis: Race and sexuality in colonial San Francisco. University of California Press.
Wells, C. (1993). The planter’s prospect: Houses, outbuildings, and rural landscapes in eighteenth-century Virginia. Winterthur Portfolio, 28(1), 1–31.
Wenger, M. R. (1986). The central passage in Virginia: Evolution of an eighteenth-century living space. Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, 2, 137–149.
Wilkie, L. (2002). Race, identity, and Habermas’s lifeworld. In C. E. Orser (Ed.), Race and the archaeology of identity (pp. 108–124). University of Utah Press.
Yentsch, A. E. (1994). A chesapeake family and their slaves. Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to extend appreciation to the editors of this volume for including our article. Contributions to the research were vastly improved by recommendations and comments by Hilarie Hicks (Montpelier’s Senior Research Historian), Elizabeth Chew (Montpelier’s Vice President for Museum Programs), and Mary Furlong Minkoff (the Curator of Archaeological Collections). Thanks are also extended to reviewers, especially Kimberly Kasper. Many thanks are given to Suzanne Spencer-Wood for inviting us to contribute to this volume and her careful reading of the piece. James French (chair of the Montpellier Descendant Committee), and Carin Bloom (Middleton Place archaeologist) provided insights into this paper that were much appreciated.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Reeves, M., Pasch, C. Reading Between the Intersecting Lines: Building Intersectionality for a Widowed Planter in Mid-18th Century Piedmont Virginia. Arch 18, 132–160 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-022-09437-2
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-022-09437-2