Plenary II: Goods

Abstract: Gender, Goods, and the History of Technology in Premodern and Early Modern Europe

Presented by: Pamela O. Long, Independent Scholar

This paper explored the gendered ways in which archeologists and historians of technology have constructed their disciplines, either explicitly or most often, without comment. How technology is defined has very much to do with whether women have a place in it. Selection and interpretation of data--both in the archeological and the historical record often has been shaped by stereotypic assumptions about gender roles. Examples include the identification of the history of technology with the history of engineering; the emphasis of historians of technology on "hard" products such as plows rather than consumables such as porridge; the concern with single inventions, rather than with the whole range of production and use of myriad goods; and finally, the interest in technological innovation rather than the always present mixture of the old and the new, traditional and innovative technologies. This paper explored the disciplinary formations of both archaeology and the history of technology and investigates how their early formations often read women out of technology. It explored the ways in which contextual methodologies must of necessity put women back in. The working out of such methodologies is crucially influenced by how the history of technology is defined in the first place.