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One Neighborhood, Two Communities: The Public Archaeology of Class in a Gentrifying Urban Neighborhood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2009

Robert C. Chidester
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
David A. Gadsby
Affiliation:
American University

Abstract

The Hampden Community Archaeology Project (HCAP) is a public archaeology project in a former textile mill neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. Since the early 1990s the area has been transformed by gentrification. There are now two distinct communities (an older, working-class community and a newer, upper-middle-class community) in the neighborhood. The goal of HCAP is to create a critical public dialogue on issues of class and economic inequality relevant to the current issues facing the neighborhood. After three years of public archaeology in Hampden-Woodberry, the project has achieved some notable successes but has also run up against several roadblocks.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2009

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References

NOTES

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30. For more on this state of affairs, see Gadsby, David A. and Chidester, Robert C., “Class, Labour, and Community,” in The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology, eds., Carman, John, McDavid, Carol, and Skeates, Robin (Oxford, England, forthcoming 2010)Google Scholar.

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32. Harvey, “The People Is Grass,” 25–26. While Hampden-Woodberry has certainly remained a racially homogenous community to a striking degree, the evidence for such a tacit agreement is ambiguous given the documented history of labor activism in the community during this period (Gadsby and Chidester, “Heritage in Hampden,” 230).

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35. Harvey, “The People Is Grass,” 58.