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Paper Information:
Type: Paper
Paper Title: CONSTRUCTING A GERMAN ETHNIC IDENTITY IN A FRENCH TOWN: JANIS-ZIEGLER/GREEN TREE TAVERN SITE (23G272) IN STE. GENEVIEVE, MISSOURI.
Author: LISA DRETSKE   
Date/Time: Sat., 5:00 PM
Co-Author(s): LISA DRETSKE 
Abstract: My paper examines the ways in which German immigrants constructed their ethnic identity in a town dominated by French colonial descendants. The analysis is based on material culture recovered from excavations at the Janis-Ziegler/Green Tree Tavern site (23G272) in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and historical documentation, including the Ziegler probate records and local nineteenth-century German and English newspapers. These German immigrants crossed cultural and linguistic boundaries as they created a new circulation of people, materials, ideas, and practices, engaging with French residents in business and in marriage. Merchants circulated new goods, advertising specific items for the town’s German residents. These items may be compared with the materials recovered archaeologically from the Ziegler occupation at the site. Finally, goods and products from Mathias Ziegler’s tobacco business circulated through the town from the Caribbean and lower Louisiana, aided by Ste. Genevieve’s advantageous location on the Mississippi River. This analysis reveals how the German Ziegler family constructed a new identity by both continuing some of their German ethnic traditions as well as adapting to living in an area dominated by French and English goods and ideas.

Program Number: 4-0775
Session Title: THE ARCHITECTURE OF IDENTITY
Session Sponsor: Archaeology Division
Session Date/Time: Sat., 1:45 PM-5:30 PM
Organizer(s): KATHRYN SAMPECK (Illinois State University) 
Chair(s): ELIZABETH SCOTT  
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