Part of a series of articles titled Using Science to Preserve the Past.
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Women in Archaeology at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site
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Throughout the history of archaeology at Fort Vancouver, women have been involved in archaeology, both working alongside archaeologists or as professional archaeologists themselves, and made incredible contributions to our understanding of the site's complex history. This article provides a brief history of women in archaeology at Fort Vancouver. Over the decades, women have gone from a minority in archaeological crews, to now often making up the majority of employees, students, volunteers, and partners in Cultural Resources work at the park.
The 1940s and 50s
During the earliest excavations at Fort Vancouver between 1947 and 1952, at least three women contributed to the project to relocate and interpret the fort. This is notable given the barriers to female archaeologists at the time (see the discussion of Susan Kardas, below). Archaeologist Louis Caywood led the excavations during this period, and while most of his crew were men, there is mention of two women helping with the excavations and a third hired on as part of the crew.
The first was Winifred Caywood, Louis Caywood's wife, who helped excavate a trash pit in 1950 that was discovered unexpectedly during pre-season demonstration excavations for visiting National Park Service officials. The find was made on a Friday and, fearing that the site would be vandalized if they left it unattended over the weekend, Caywood and his wife excavated the pit over the weekend. This excavation resulted in "more than two pickup truckloads of boxes of artifacts" (Caywood 1955: 23).
During the 1950 season, six university students were hired as archaeological aides, including Florence Jean Howard from the University of Washington. Howard is recorded as performing archaeological laboratory and cataloging work (Caywood 1950: 1, 1955: 23). The third woman to participate in the excavations is only briefly mentioned in Caywood's records. Caywood reported a "Miss Tony Howard," who found "Pit No. 7" and "worked one full day at the excavations" (Caywood 1955: 23).
NPS photo, FOVA 159799
The 1960s
Susan Kardas
Eighteen years later, in 1968, the first female archaeological investigator at Fort Vancouver, Susan Kardas, started excavations at the Village site. Kardas had been educated at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and received her doctorate in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in 1971. Her Ph.D. dissertation is based on the research she conducted at the Fort Vancouver Village, discussed below.
Before working at Fort Vancouver, Kardas worked with James Deetz from 1962 to 1964 at La Purisima Mission in California, where she served as a surveyor and laboratory director. She continued this work at Louisbourg, Nova Scotia in 1965 and at Fort Kentucky in Sackets Harbor, New York (Kardas 1971: 437). She also conducted a survey of the upper Columbia River in 1966. Her mentors at Bryn Mawr were Frederica de Laguna and Jane Goodale, both sociocultural anthropologists. De Laguna, in particular, had used archaeology to augment the ethnographic record at contact-period American Indian sites in the Pacific Northwest (Cotter 1993, de Laguna 1960).
Kardas, along with her husband and fellow archaeologist Edward Larrabee, were hired to survey the Fort Vancouver Village area in 1968 (Kardas 1971). After Fort Vancouver, Kardas and Larrabee continued to work in contract and salvage archaeology. They formed the contracting firm Historic Sites Research that operated in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1975, and later in Hurricane, Utah (Reed College 2006).
Kardas and Larrabee's co-authored report documented the results of the 1968 excavations in the Village. It was described by National Park Service Director John Rutter as one of the "finest" reports he had ever received.
To provide funding for her dissertation work and additional excavations, Kardas solicited Congresswoman Julia Butler Hansen with a proposal for $2,500 for a second year of research at the Village. The role of women archaeologists in the field was neither secure nor typical in the 1960s, and Kardas was acutely aware of the challenges for a female scholar in a male-dominated field. She wrote to Congresswoman Hansen: "My chances of getting the money may also be lessened because I am a woman, and archaeology unfortunately is still not fully open to them" (Merritt 1993: 148). On her behalf, Congresswoman Hansen, who was likewise a pioneer in the male-dominated field of politics - provided encouragement for National Park Service Director George Hartzog to fund the excavation and to create a joint field school with Bryn Mawr and the University of Washington. The resulting field school included five female students from Bryn Mawr.
In the Administrative History of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Merrit (1993) notes the prickly interactions between Kardas and Larrabee and the staffs of the University of Washington and the National Park Service, including a particularly nasty exchange with a state highway archaeologist in the field. Merrit details a number of letters from Kardas to Congresswoman Hansen complaining about discriminatory behavior towards her and her students. While Larrabee was designated the field director of both the 1968 and 1969 projects, Kardas' dissertation was clearly the dominant aspect of the research and she had substantial influence in the fieldwork design, conducting most of the analysis and report writing.
The excavations identified four house sites (identified as Houses 1, 2, 3, and 4) and a number of extramural pits, including animal burials, and concentrations of rock. Kardas also authored the 1970 report titled "1969 Excavations at the Kanaka Village Site, Fort Vancouver, Washington." The work culminated in her 1971 doctoral dissertation titled The People Bought This and the Clatsop Became Rich. Kardas' project in the Fort Vancouver Village centered on the anthropological exploration of culture contact and culture change. It focused on the social history and ethnohistory of the fur trade community, in particular the lives of Native Hawaiian men and Native American women, primarily Chinookans (Kardas 1971). Her study analyzed and synthesized historical, ethnographic, and archaeological data in a manner that aimed to "yield a picture [of the fur trade community] which is far more meaningful than that given by any one method alone" (Kardas 1971: 1).
These excavations illustrate the shift in archaeological studies towards the exploration of colonial contexts from the perspective of identity, including race and gender, and the use of artifacts and features combined with historical and ethnographic data to build a better understanding of the social relations in a multiethnic community. Kardas' dissertation attempted to elaborate on the relationships between the various ethnic groups that lived in the Fort Vancouver Village, especially Native Americans and Native Hawaiians. Unfortunately for Kardas, most of the materials she recovered were British or European in origin, probably purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) "Sale Shop," which was the principal retail outlet for the employees of the Company, early missionaries, and Oregon Trail settlers. The methods by which archaeologists attempted to identify ethnicity in the 1960s focused on "ethnic markers," like diagnostic stone tools (e.g., projectile points), precluding careful analysis of the ways in which domestic artifacts and consumables, including foods, furnishings, and implements, might address practices tied to the identity of individuals.
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The 1970s
Projects at Fort Vancouver in the 1970s saw an increase in women working in archaeology. Excavations in the fort stockade area occurred from 1970 to 1974, and included a few women on the crews, including volunteers from the Oregon Archaeological Society (OAS) who helped excavate the Sale Shop. Caroline Carley worked on the crew for the southeastern stockade excavations and co-authored the associated reports.
Three other large excavation projects took place in the southwestern corner of the park in the Village area, as well as the former site of a pond that was once adjacent to the Village, now underneath SR-14 and a railroad berm, in 1974, 1975, and 1977. Based on the crew lists in reports, the excavations in the first two years included women working on the field crew, in the lab, and contributing to artifact analysis, curation, and report writing (Chance and Chance 1976; Chance et al. 1982). Jennifer Chance participated in the excavations and co-authored the reports. The field director for the third project, in 1977, was Caroline Carley (Carley 1982). The project employed women on the field crew, and women worked on the artifact processing and analysis in the Laboratory of Anthropology at the University of Idaho.
Jennifer V. Chance
Excavations in the mid-1970s at Fort Vancouver were prompted by the planned I-5 and SR-14 interchange revision at the southwestern corner of the national park. The first two years of the excavations, 1974 and 1975, were led by archaeologist David Chance. Jennifer V. Chance, David's wife, participated in the excavations and co-authored both reports on the excavations (Chance and Chance 1976; Chance et al. 1982). Jennifer Chance was also in charge of the field laboratory during the 1975 project.
Chance and Chance (1976) wrote their first report on the excavations at the Fort Vancouver Village and Vancouver Barracks with the "lay public" in mind, suggesting a desire for public outreach. One of their research interests was exploring and explaining the impact of the industrial revolution on Indigenous and non-European cultures at Fort Vancouver. Similar to Kardas, they attempted to find culturally-diagnostic artifacts reflecting the ethnic identities of the Fort Vancouver Village inhabitants.
The 1975 excavations were not reported on until 1982 (Chance et al. 1982). The report has a clearly defined desire to document artifact patterning in order to identify past behaviors, in line with the processual/behavioral approach to archaeology that had risen to dominate the field during this period. For example, they examined the stratified refuse (trash) deposits in the former pond location to determine trends through time in object use and styles. Another important focus of their work was on the characterization of the site as part of the American "frontier" and on whether there was any cultural lag with the East and Midwest. Their work focused on the artifacts and their patterns, using the written historical record to help explain the patterning. This is in contrast to earlier archaeological approaches that used the archaeological record to support the historical record.
Jennifer Chance was also co-author on other archaeology reports with Chance, including excavations at Kettle Falls and Spaulding Mission (Chance and Chance 1974, 1985).
Caroline D. Carley
Caroline D. Carley started work at Fort Vancouver with the 1973-1974 Hoffman and Ross excavations of the southeast portion of the HBC Fort Vancouver stockade. Carley is a co-author on the two associated reports with Lester Ross, Bryn Thomas, and Charles Hibbs (Ross et al. 1975; Ross and Carley 1976). Later, she was a field crew member for the 1975 Chance-directed excavations and analyzed the glass bottles and glassware, writing the chapter on that subject in Chance et al. (1982).
For the 1977 excavations, Carley served as the field director, assisted by Bryn Thomas. Archaeologists Robert Dunnell and Jerry Jermann oversaw the project. Carley wrote the report for the excavations, completed a few years later in 1982 (Carley 1982). The excavations also served as the basis of her thesis at the University of Idaho in 1979 (Carley 1979), which was under the direction of a committee of archaeologists Rick Sprague and Frank Leonhardy, and historian William Greever. Her thesis interpreted a palisaded area near the Fort Vancouver Village and Waterfront by comparing the archaeological remains to historical documents. Medical artifacts confirmed the historical documentation that a hospital, enclosed within palisade walls, was located near the pond.
Overall, the mid-1970s excavations identified structures and features of the HBC Fort Vancouver Village and Riverside Complex, the pond, and the U.S. Army Quartermaster's Depot. These included HBC house, the Quartermaster's Ranch (also known as the Ingalls House after Quartermaster Rufus Ingalls), and a trash-filled pond with deposits containing HBC and early US Army period objects. These excavations provided the data for a number of theses written at the University of Idaho, which eventually became published works on imported and handmade bricks (Gurke 1987), medical practice (Carley 1981), and the dating of window glass (Roenke 1978).
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The 1980s
Most archaeological projects at Fort Vancouver in the 1980s were led by male archaeologists, but women were part of the crews both as employees and volunteers. The decade started with a large excavation project in the South Vancouver Barracks and Village in 1980 and 1981 that was the final part of the I-5 and SR-14 interchange project (Thomas and Hibbs 1984). Archaeologists Bryn Thomas and Charles Hibbs led the project. Female archaeologists worked on the field crew and contributed to report writing. This project identified a number of HBC Village houses, including the house of HBC employees John Johnson, Little Proulx, and William Kaulehelehe. Excavators also uncovered portions of the U.S. Army Quartermaster's Depot such as stables, sheds, the ca. 1850-1863 Quartermaster's Depot Blacksmith's Shop, the Carpenter's Shop, the Clerk's Quarters or mess (ca. 1850) and a granary (ca. 1871).
Other projects in the 1980s included the excavation of the Jail site and the 1845 HBC New Office (Counting House) site inside the fort. OAS volunteers helped to excavate these sites, led by archaeologist Charles Hibbs and OAS member Harvey Steele (Steele 1984; Steele and Hibbs 1985).
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The Late 1990s-2000s
The number of women involved with archaeology at Fort Vancouver grew starting in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During this period, the functions of the staff of the national park's Cultural Resources Division expanded, and relatedly, the number of archaeological projects also increased.
Linda Freidenburg
Linda Freidenburg worked on cultural resources projects at Fort Vancouver in the 1990s. Freidenburg earned her M.A. in Anthropology from Portland State University in 1993. Her thesis contributed to the chronology of human occupation of the Tualatin Valley in Oregon through the dating of projectile point assemblages, titled This Looks Like an Old Point: Time and Projectile Points in the Tualatin Valley. Her thesis chair was Kenneth M. Ames, with Marc R. Feldesman, John L. Fagan, and Daniel M. Johnson as the other committee members.
Freidenburg acted as an archaeological contractor for Fort Vancouver National Historic Site as an employee of Eastern Washington University, Archaeological and Historical Services, working alongside Bryn Thomas. Her work mainly consisted of cataloging artifacts from earlier excavations, developing a significant portion of the records for the Fort Vancouver museum collection. She authored a report on the relocation and re-excavation of the inferred post hole for the well sweep located in the northeastern portion of the Fort Vancouver stockade. As a result of this work, the National Park Service placed a historically accurate well sweep reconstruction inside the fort stockade.
Freidenburg co-authored three other reports with Thomas. These are: the installation of an underground telephone line (Freidenburg and Thomas 1994), excavations at the HBC Carpenter Shop (Thomas and Freidenburg 1997), and a review of information regarding burials and cemeteries associated with Fort Vancouver and Vancouver Barracks (Thomas and Freidenburg 1998). For the Carpenter Shop excavations, Freidenburg served as the lab director and occasional field work hand. The aim of the project was to gain additional information prior to the reconstruction of the building, which occurred in 1997.
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The Northwest Cultural Resources Institute
Another development during this period was the formalizing of relationships between the National Park Service and local universities through the Northwest Cultural Resources Institute (NCRI). The NCRI was created as a cooperative partnership based at Fort Vancouver and is dedicated to fostering cultural resources stewardship and professionalism. Partnerships with universities provide opportunities for students, researchers, and volunteers. These include, but are not limited to, archaeological field schools, the national park's archaeology lab volunteer program, and the study of Fort Vancouver archaeology for academic projects, conference papers, and journal articles.
As a result of this increase in proactive outreach, projects, and partnerships, it is estimated that at least 100 women have contributed to the archaeology of Fort Vancouver since the late 1990s. They include National Park Service staff, contractors, researchers, avocational archaeologists, volunteers, and university students. Since the late 1990s, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site's Cultural Resources Department has included numerous women, including archaeologists Dr. Elizabeth Horton, Heidi Pierson, Jacqui Cheung, Cheryl Paddock, and Leslie O'Rourke. The national park's current staff includes Cultural Resources Program Manager Theresa Langford, Curator Meagan Huff, and Archaeologist Elaine Dorset. University interns, graduate assistants, and researchers, as well as contractors, add to the number of women working in cultural resources at Fort Vancouver in the last two decades. Archaeologist Katie Wynia, through NCRI partnerships, has worked at Fort Vancouver for nearly a decade. Women archaeologists have written over 10 masters theses and doctoral dissertations regarding Fort Vancouver, with more currently in progress. The archaeological field school at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site has educated over 100 students, of which it is estimated more than half are women. Last, but not least, are the numerous volunteers that have contributed thousands of hours in the lab and in the field.
Certainly, the increase of women in archaeology has been a general trend within the field at large. However, female archaeologists working at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site were often at the forefront of this trend, trailblazing for others, and today we are proud to say that this national park offers a welcoming and supportive program for women hoping to train or work in archaeology.
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Last updated: February 27, 2023