Abstract
In discussing the acceptance of the ideology of domesticity by the working class of Australia, Grace Karskens (2001:79) has suggested that archaeologists need to “consider the limits of domesticity and moral order in some houses, in some lives.” Three sites in Port Adelaide are examined in response to this suggestion: the McKay and Farrow family cottages, and a group of four tenanted cottages. The artifacts from these sites were used to determine the extent to which the ideology of domesticity had been accepted by the residents, particularly in relation to the economic role of women and children and the idea of home as a sanctuary. This is analyzed by considering the archaeological evidence for women undertaking paid work within the home, the number of children’s toys, and evidence of home decoration in the form of ornaments and house fittings. This evidence would suggest the McKay family had fully embraced the ideology of domesticity, while the Farrow family incorporated a working wife into their conception of respectability. For the residents at Quebec Street, however, adherence to the ideology was a daily struggle that required sacrifices.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Austral Archaeology 2002 Archaeological Excavation of Part of Parcel 2, Wapping. Report to Wapping Implementation Committee, Wapping, Hobart, from Austral Archaeology, Hobart, Australia.
Beaudry, Mary C., and Stephen A. Mrozowski 2001 Cultural Space and Worker Identity in the Company City: Nineteenth-Century Lowell, Massachusetts. In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, editors, pp. 118–131. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.
Beaudry, Mary C., and Stephen A. Mrozowski (EDITORS) 1987 Appendix C: Artifacts Recovered from Lowell Boarding House Park Site Trench List. In Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Boott Mills Lowell, Massachusetts. Report to National Park Service, Boston MA, from The Center for Archaeological Studies, Boston University, Boston, MA.
Bourdieu, Pierre 1984 Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, England, UK.
Brooks, Alasdair 2003 Crossing Offa’s Dyke: British Ideologies, Welsh Society and Late Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Ceramics in Wales. In Archaeologies of the British, Susan Lawrence, editor, pp. 113–137. Routledge, London, England, UK.
2005 An Archaeological Guide to British Ceramics in Australia, 1788–1901. The Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology, Sydney, Australia and the La Trobe University Archaeology Program, Melbourne, Australia.
Brooks, Alasdair, and Graham Connah 2007 A Hierarchy of Servitude: Ceramics at Lake Innes Estate, New South Wales. Antiquity 81:133–147.
Chaffers, William 1965 Marks and Monograms on European and Oriental Pottery and Porcelain, Volume 2. 15th revised edition. William Reeves, London, England, UK.
Colonial Government of South Australia 1884 Census of South Australia 1881. E. Spiller, Government Printer, Adelaide, Australia.
Crook, Penny 2000 Shopping and Historical Archaeology: Exploring the Contexts of Urban Consumption. Australasian Historical Archaeology 18:17–28.
Dyhouse, Carol 1981 Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, England, UK.
Farrow, Edith 1983 Edmund Farrow. In The First 100 Years of Semaphore 1883–1983, Semaphore Promotions and Tourist Association, editor, pp. 6–7. Largs Bay Printers and B. & T. Publishers, Port Adelaide, Australia.
Fitts, Robert K. 2001 The Rhetoric of Reform: The Five Points Missions and the Cult of Domesticity. Historical Archaeology 35(3):115–132.
Godden, G. A. 1991 Encyclopaedia of British Pottery and Porcelain Marks. Barrie and Jenkins, London, England, UK.
Graham, Gerald S. 1967 Great Britain in the Indian Ocean: A Study of Maritime Enterprise 1810–1850. Clarendon Press, Oxford, England, UK.
Karskens, Grace 1999 Inside The Rocks: The Archaeology of a Neighbourhood. Hale and Iremonger, Alexandria, Australia.
2001 Small Things, Big pictures: New Perspectives from the Archaeology of Sydney’s Rocks Neighbourhood. In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, editors, pp. 69–85. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.
Kiek, Edward Sydney 1927 An Apostle in Australia: Life and Reminiscences of Joseph Coles Kirby, Christian Pioneer and Social Reformer. Independent Press, London, England, UK.
Kingston, Beverley 1994 Basket, Bag, and Trolley: A History of Shopping in Australia. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia.
Laroche, Cheryl J., and Gary S. Mcgowan 2001 “Material Culture”: Conservation and Analysis of Textiles Recovered from Five Points. Historical Archaeology 35(3):65–75.
Lawrence, Susan 2000 Dolly’s Creek: An Archaeology of a Victorian Goldfields Community. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Australia.
Lawrence Cheney, Susan 1994 “Tin as Bright as Silver”: Making a Proper Victorian Home on the Goldfields. In Proceedings of the Australasian Victorian Studies Association Conference, pp. 179–187. University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, Australia.
Leone, Mark P. 1988 The Georgian Order as the Order of Merchant Capitalism in Annapolis, Maryland. In The Recovery of Meaning: Historical Archaeology in the Eastern United States, Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, editors, pp. 235–261. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
1999 Setting Some Terms for Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism. In Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, Mark P. Leone and Parker B. Potter, editors, pp. 3–22. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, NY.
Lindbergh, Jennie 1999 Buttoning Down Archaeology. Australasian Historical Archaeology 17:50–57.
McCarthy, John P. 2001 Values and Identity in the “Working Class” Worlds of Late-Nineteenth-Century Minneapolis. In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, editors, pp. 145–153. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.
Murray, Tim, and Alan Mayne 2001 Imaginary Landscapes: Reading Melbourne’s “Little Lon.” In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, editors, pp. 89–105. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.
2003 (Re)Constructing a Lost Community: “Little Lon,” Melbourne, Australia. Historical Archaeology 37(1):87–101.
Patmore, Coventry 1854 The Angel in the House: The Victories of Love. Reprinted in 1905 by Routledge & Sons, New York, NY.
Port Adelaide News 1882 Coroner’s Inquest. Port Adelaide News 18 April:8c, 8d. Port Adelaide, Australia.
Praetzellis, Adrian, and Mary Praetzellis 1992 Faces and Facades: Victorian Ideology in Early Sacramento. In The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology: Essays in Honor of James Deetz, Anne Elizabeth Yentsch and Mary C. Beaudry, editors, pp. 75–99. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Price, Peter C. 1988 Labouring Families in Early Colonial South Australia. Diploma dissertation, Department of Social Sciences, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
Sinclair, W. A. 1981 Women at Work in Melbourne and Adelaide since 1871. The Economic Record 57(159):344–353.
Staniforth, Mark 2003 Material Culture and Consumer Society: Dependant Colonies in Australia. Plenum, London, England, UK.
Thompson, E. P. 1991 The Making of the English Working Class. Penguin Books, London, England, UK.
Vincentelli, Moira 1992 Talking Pots: Ceramics in Wales. The University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales, UK.
Webster, Jane 1999 Resisting Traditions: Ceramics, Identity, and Consumer Choice in the Outer Hebrides from 1800 to the Present. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3(1):53–73.
Yamin, Rebecca 2001 Alternative Narratives: Respectability at New York’s Five Points. In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland, Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, editors, pp. 154–170. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK.
Yamin, Rebecca (editor) 2004 Tales of Five Points: Working-Class Life in Nineteenth-Century New York. CD ROM Artifact Database. Report to Edwards and Kelcey Engineers, Inc., Livingston, NJ, and General Services Administration, New York, NY, from John Milner Associates, West Chester, PA.
Young, Linda 1992 Comfort and Decency: Furniture and Equipment in Adelaide Homes. In William Shakespeare’s Adelaide 1860–1930, Brian Dickey, editor, pp. 14–26. Association of Professional Historians, Adelaide, Australia.
1997 The Struggle for Class: The Transmission of Genteel Culture to Early Colonial Australia. Doctoral dissertation, Faculty of Social Sciences, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.
2003 Middle-Class Culture in the Nineteenth Century: America, Australia, and Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, England, UK.
Zlotnick, Susan 1991 “A Thousand Times I’d be a Factory Girl”: Dialect, Domesticity, and Working-Class Women’s Poetry in Victorian Britain. Victorian Studies 35(1):7–28.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lampard, S. The Ideology of Domesticity and the Working-Class Women and Children of Port Adelaide, 1840–1890. Hist Arch 43, 50–64 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03376760
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03376760