Virtual Material Matters: It’s in the Details
The Fourteenth Annual “Material Matters: It’s in the Details” conference takes place virtually on January 25, 2025. We invite you to join us online for this conference on material culture spanning 1609-1815.
This conference is only available online through Fort Ticonderoga’s Center for Digital History, streaming through Zoom. A laptop, tablet, or smartphone is required to participate in the conference. Advanced registration is required.
Participants will receive a Zoom link three days before the conference by email and a reminder link will be sent the morning of the conference. This interactive virtual conference allows participants to ask questions of each presenter using the “Q&A” button.
Saturday, January 25, 2025
9:50am Welcome
10:00-10:30am The Material Culture of European and American Regimental Colors—Regimental colours, the flags that identified the individual regiments that made up the armies of the day, were important military accoutrements throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and well into the nineteenth century. We may think we know a lot about these flags—drawings of them are all over the internet. But how accurate are any of those drawings or reproductions? This talk explains how not just regulations and traditions made those colours the way they were, but the physical limitations of the material culture—the availability of standardized materials and dyes, the lack of standard measurements, changing artistic tastes and expectations, the costs of labor vs materials—in the era in which they were made. Steven W. Hill, MA in history 1986, has studied and written about regimental colors of the 18th and 19 centuries for over 40 years. He is the author of the just-released book, Battle Flags of the Wars for North America, 1754-1783: The Foreign Regiments.
10:45-11:15am Three Soldiers, Two Centuries, One Pipe: A Study of Military Tobacco Pipes at Fort Delaware—The British Royal Navy clay tobacco pipes found at Fort Delaware reflect three military lives: British soldiers in the War of 1812, Civil War service members stationed and imprisoned at the fort, and the present-day veterans currently rehabilitating the collection through the Veterans Curation Program. By following these pipes through time, this paper will demonstrate not only how soldiers change history but are changed by it as well. Caroline Gardiner holds a Masters in Historical Archaeology and specializes in ceramics and East Coast colonial sites. Gabi Samaniego is a former United States Marine and a manager at an archaeological curation facility.
11:30-11:50am GRADUATE SHOWCASE
The Basseville at Ticonderoga—Last summer Edward W. Pell Graduate Fellow Ekin Berk Polat diligently compiled primary sources, gathered historic maps, and conducted archaeological research to comprehensively document the history of the Lower Town, also known as the French Village or Basseville. Ekin catalogued and photographed over 2,500 artifacts from the 1956-1957 excavations of the site. His work significantly contributed to Fort Ticonderoga’s ongoing efforts to digitize its archaeological resources. Ekin’s final report greatly enhanced academic accessibility to the Lower Town for researchers, students, and supporters.
11:50am-12:30pm Lunch Break
12:30-1:00pm “Old Soldiers May be Dismissed, [to] Marry & Settle in the Country:” Settler-Colonialism and Military Objectives at Fort St. Frédéric, 1734-1759—During the global expansion of European influence, military leaders understood the importance of local civil militias to the success of colonial endeavors. Employing period documents, digital landscape reconstruction, extant archaeological collections, and preliminary data from new excavations in 2024, this presentation examines how the propagation of French agricultural settlements around Fort St. Frédéric serviced a multifaceted system of implicit (and often explicit) violence. Matthew D. O’Leary is a PhD candidate in anthropology (historical archaeology) at Syracuse University and the co-director of SU’s Crown Point Archaeological Field-School.
1:15-1:45pm From a Plan Drawn on the Spot: William Faden and the Battle of Brandywine—Following the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, British engraver and geographer William Faden compiled various sources from officers within the British and German armies to produce a commemorative map celebrating the British victory in 1778. Six years later, in 1784, Faden unusually produced a second edition of the map depicting the battle that contained significant differences. Through an examination of both versions, this talk will discuss the maps’ features and differences, along with the various sources that influenced Faden’s revisions. Andrew Outten is the historical programs manager for the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, D.C.
