"The Best Kind of Long Ones": Tobacco Smoking at George Washington's Mount Vernon

This thesis focuses on both methodological and theoretical issues in an investigation of English manufactured clay tobacco pipes recovered from an archaeological site at George Washington's Mount Vernon in Virginia. Similar to previous work, dating methods based on tobacco pipe data from this site are evaluated and the significance of the results is discussed. Utilizing tobacco pipes recovered from archaeological contexts solely for dating, however, disregards other lines of research that can explore the role that tobacco pipes had in Colonial American culture. This thesis also analyzes two stylistic aspects of imported clay tobacco pipes, namely the imagery displayed on pipes and tobacco pipe length, and considers how they might be related to the social identity of the smoker. Archaeological data, information from historical documents, and archaeological theory are brought together in order to investigate the meanings and roles of these small, quotidian objects.

Author

• Barca, Kathryn G.

Language

• en

Date created

• 2012

Type of Work

• Master's Thesis

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Anthropology

Degree

• M.A.

Advisor

• Blomster, Jeffrey

Committee Member(s)

• Cressey, Pamela

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/r207tp52w