Reflections on the Past Year in VAF

VAF Initiatives 2013-2014 (adapted from annual banquet comments)

by Chris Wilson, VAF President

Cocktails on the schooner Meerwald at the end of the Bayshore tour

Each of us who were able to attend the wonderful annual conference in New Jersey has our favorite tour stops and memories. My own favorite was the reception and dinner on the Thursday Bayshore tour at the Bivalve wharves and oyster shipping sheds. What a great historic setting with the evening light shimmering off the water and the easy conviviality among VAF members and the dedicated volunteers there, who have preserved the wharves and the oyster schooner Meerwald. Our thanks for many such memories goes to all of the members of the conference organizing committee, especially to its chair, Janet Foster, and to our co-sponsors at The Richard Stockton College.

 
The papers committee--Chair, Jennifer Cousineau, Jeff Klee and Andrew Sandoval-Strauz--also played a pivotal role in shaping the intellectual content of the conference. The VAF continued its support for young scholars by awarding Ambassador Fellowships to support the attendance of student delegations from the SUNY Cooperstown Grad Center, the University of Delaware, George Washington University and McGill University. In addition, Simpson Fellowship supported the conference expenses of 13 students and young professionals who delivered papers.

 
In recent years, the Second Vice President has taken the lead in fostering upcoming conferences. Over the past six years, Second VP Marcia Miller has worked with local organizers on a series of memorable conferences at Washington DC; Falmouth, Jamaica; Madison, Wisconsin; Gaspe, Quebec; in south Jersey, and on next year’s Chicago conference. In-coming Second VP, Jeff Klee, will continue this important conference development work.

 
Our distinctive, tour-heavy conferences are central to our organizational identity, but the VAF is also increasingly known for the engaging writing in our journal, Buildings & Landscapes, with its geographic breadth and intellectual depth. The journal’s growing reputation is due to clear-sighted, hard work of co-editors, Marta Gutman and Cindy Faulk, and book review editor Andrew Sandoval-Strauz.

 
Of course, our on-line profile has also grown in recent years, notably in our graphically appealing, content rich website. Susan Garfinkel--who has arguably contributed more than anyone to the maturation of the website--stepped down after 6 and one-half years as co-editor this past November. Over the past year, David Bergstone has been indispensible not only in his role as the continuing co-editor of the website, but also for his work with the transition to our new Wild Apricot platform. During this past year, the education committee under its chair, Sarah Fayen Scarlett, has also revitalized the online syllabi section of the website, and has begun to develop PowerPoint presentations on various subjects for use by educators.

 
The VAF has seen a gradual decline of membership over the past couple years, and the board has responded by establishing a Membership Committee to develop a strategy for rebuilding membership. One key step has been to establish a Wild Apricot account, which allows us to handle memberships on-line, to send renewal notices electronically, to identify and recruit interested non-members, to distribute our newsletter, to handle conference registration on-line, and much more. Membership committee chair Wendy Ward, along with David Bergstone, Christine Henry, and Gabrielle Lanier took the lead in this transition to Wild Apricot.

 
The Vernacular Architecture News (VAN)--as you know from reading this issue on your computer--has gone digital under its new editor, Christine Henry. She will continue to distribute quarterly issues of VAN through email, along with such occasional special issues as this past and up-coming conference issue, and, early in the spring, a directory to summer field schools.

Out-going board members--Michael Chiarappa, Jennifer Cousineau, Elaine Jackson-Retondo, Virginia Price, and Aaron Wunsch—each made numerous contributions on various projects during their three-year terms. First Vice President, Clair Dempsey, served as an indispensible advisor and sounding board for me this past year, while also chairing the nominating committee, and preparing new orientation materials for the incoming board members.

 
Don Linebaugh completed his second five-year term as treasurer at the New Jersey conference. In addition to the substantial work of tracking our finances and managing our investments, Don has provided continuity through five VAF presidents. I owe him a particular debt of thanks for his steadying advice as I got my feet under me as president. Lisa Davidson, of the Historic American Buildings Survey, who played a leading role in the organization of the Washington D.C. conference in 2010, has taken over as VAF Treasurer.

The Vernacular Architecture Forum is an all-volunteer organization, without any paid staff. We depend on the generous contributions of time and intelligence from members, board members and officers such as those I have mentioned.  Thank you to everyone for your contributions, which make this a vibrant and dynamic organization.

Cooperstown Students Reflect on their first VAF Conference in Down Jersey

By Michelle Paulus, Eric Feingold, Jillian Reese, Emily Hopkins, and Britney Schline

Oysters, a timber framed elephant, and friendly new faces! We didn’t know what to expect coming to our inaugural Vernacular Architecture Forum meeting, but we certainly couldn’t have predicted that it would include all of these. Who knew Down Jersey had so much to offer?

Ambassador Award winners explore Down Jersey

This year the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies, a partnership between the New York State Historical Association and SUNY Oneonta, was the recipient of an Ambassadors Award from the VAF, which allowed five current second-year students to travel to the annual meeting outside of Atlantic City from May 7-10.  SUNY Oneonta provided additional funding to facilitate the trip through a generous Course Enhancement Grant to Dr. Cynthia Falk for her class American Material Culture II.  

Our experience began at Wednesday’s opening reception at Stockton College where we were warmly welcomed by the College’s officials, keynote speaker Dr. Bernard Herman, and many a VAF veteran. After enjoying appetizers and cocktails we were beginning to feel part of the VAF family.

Though Thursday started early it was well worth waking at the break of dawn. After a scenic bus ride we took the chance to stretch our legs and explore the quaint historic village of Greenwich. We discovered the Quaker Meeting House and broke its gender boundaries, chatted with some locals at the historical society and prehistoric museum, and took in the multiple eighteenth-century houses. After Greenwich it was on to Mauricetown where we were greeted with some amazing chicken salad and warm hospitality. After lunch, local homeowners kindly allowed us to voyeur through their homes and climb into their cupolas to enjoy panoramic views. As the sun came out, we walked the dykes along the Burcham Farm and enjoyed more cupola views at the East Point Lighthouse, taking in the beauty of the Delaware Bay. The evening concluded with three courses of oysters and live music at the Bayshore Discovery Center in Bivalve by the water.

Copperstown Students visit Lucy the Margate Elephant

We slept in a whole half an hour later on Friday and started out despite the fog. By far a favorite stop of ours, we climbed inside Lucy the Elephant and walked along the beach just outside Atlantic City. After meeting Lucy we moved onto the beautiful Woodbine Synagogue and then to the unique South Seaville Camp Meeting. We explored the tiny and brightly painted Victorian cottages of the late nineteenth-century Methodist camp community and met residents still carrying on the summer tradition. In the afternoon we made our way into the twentieth century at the Rufwud Cottage before moving onto Historic Cold Spring Village where we enjoyed cocktails while exploring its collection of historic structures before dinner in the Grange Hall.

Saturday’s paper sessions challenged us to think in new ways about historic preservation and the study of architecture. We pondered monuments and Confederate memory, the segregation of New Jersey schools, and lost neighborhoods of Montreal. All tied together a common theme of using historic preservation to highlight and construct the stories of historically underrepresented groups.

We danced the night away at the closing banquet and got excited for next year’s conference in Chicago! We were sad to say goodbye to our new VAF friends, but we’ll be sure to keep in touch. All in all it was a wonderful few days in Down Jersey and we are so grateful to the VAF for hosting us.

Panelists Explore Intangible Vernacular Spaces at the 2014 VAF Conference

Left to Right: Session Chair Amber Wiley with panelists Wendel White, Janet Sheridan and Paul Schopp

By Amber Wiley

The panel was entitled “Building at the Margins: African American Places in New Jersey and Beyond.” Panel participants included Janet Sheridan, discussing “Missing Marshalltown: Reconstructing Cultural Landscapes with GIS;” Paul Schopp on “Marginal Freedom: the Development of Antebellum African American Enclaves across South Jersey;” and Wendel White highlighting his photography project “Small Towns, Black Lives/ Schools for the Coloured.” The success in the panel was the combination of methodologies for exploring disappearing African American landscapes. The sites discussed were churches, schoolhouses, and homesteads. Through technological prowess, rigorous archival research, and visual re-presentations of material, we, as scholars of the built environment and interpreters of vanishing landscapes, begin to see, discuss, and re-evaluate these hidden histories in a more productive manner.

A few keywords that united all the papers were marginal, border, periphery, and last.  In direct contrast to those, however, were the words primary, nodal, only, and first.  The vanishing or vanished communities and sites that were discussed in the panel fit within the terms that seem, at first glance, in binary opposition.  However, the vestiges of time have changed the way we talk about communities that were once considered extremely important and exceptional.  These are communities that have felt the impact of emancipation, desegregation and urbanization.  They were born out of necessity, and then rendered ineffective.

This trend is not confined to South Jersey – it is a national trend. I was recently in Austin, Texas on an African American history and culture tour, and it was mainly an investigation of the invisible.  Some tour participants became agitated:  “Where are the buildings?!” they asked.  The Clarksville Historic District is a prime example of this condition.  In Oklahoma there exist ruins of small independent black towns that are remnants of what they used to be.  Examples include Rentiesville, home of John Hope Franklin, and Boley, site of the longest running black rodeo.

We take comfort in the visual aspects of preservation.  The tangible. This is why it is of utmost importance to investigate and engage new modes of inquiry and representation such as GIS and artistic photography. These are processes by which we make visible what has been lost, and re-inscribe meaning on the landscape in a very visual manner.  These creative re-presentations can lead to new ways of framing the conversation and engaging the public.  Artistic re-interpretations of the past are valid:  photography, murals, and interactive site development.  These methods promote learning and push inquiry into the future of vanished or vanishing landscapes.

Marking Time: Research and Observations on Historical Graffiti

by Michael J. Emmons Jr.

Ship Carved in the wall at the Nicholson House, photo courtesy of author

I glanced out the window from a second-story bedroom at the Abel and Mary Nicholson House, and, as I suspected, almost everyone was leaving to make their way back to the tour bus. I was scurrying to get photos of all the rooms upstairs before I left, and at the same time, looking for historical graffiti in the house.  The “marking” of buildings and objects is the subject of my budding dissertation at the University of Delaware, so I was hopeful that my tours at VAF might reveal some examples for me to study.  I wasn’t disappointed.  As luck would have it, when I turned away from the window, my eye caught something carved into the untreated plank wall to my left.  The raking sunlight highlighted two distinct ships—schooners or sloops—scratched into the wall, accompanied by the initials “W. C.”   I was thrilled.  I hadn’t seen any reference to these markings before.  A few months earlier, however, while documenting buildings in Mauricetown, NJ in preparation for the conference, I had photographed a large schooner carved into an interior wall at the early-18^th century Caesar Hoskins plank house.

Ship carved in wall at Gandy House, photo courtesy of author

The next day, the theme continued.  On the “Four Centuries by the Shore” tour, we stopped at the Thomas Gandy House, where I found Joan Berkey and Cary Carson looking at some old planks laid out on a table.  Those planks contained an incised picture of a boat or ship.  A remarkable coincidence, I thought.  Or, was it?  About an hour later, at the Moses and Sarah Crossley House, Joan’s husband, Scott Smith, nodded his head knowingly when I told him about my study—and immediately told me about a ship carved in a barn at the nearby Cape May County Historical Society museum.  During the few weeks since the conference, others have pointed me toward even more examples of nautical carvings on houses.  My advisor Ritchie Garrison said there are “pinkies”—a type of sailing vessel—carved in the walls at the recently rediscovered Sampson woodshop in Massachusetts.  Another advisor, Rebecca Sheppard, told me about a ship drawn on a barn wall near the Delaware Bay in Odessa.  Madeline Dunn at the Delaware SHPO said there was a large ship carved on a door at the John Dickenson plantation.  And at Winterthur, the head furniture conservator, Mark Anderson, told me about an 18^th century house near the Chesapeake in Maryland with about 20 ships carved in an exterior wall (and then, as if on cue—even though our meeting was spontaneous—he wheeled over a valuable antique highboy chest that had a ship carved into the side).

In short, my field experiences at the VAF in New Jersey revealed a pattern that will likely be incorporated into a chapter of my dissertation.  What prompted so many people—I suspect often children and young adults, especially based on the height of the drawings I’ve seen—to record so many images of ships on their dwellings?  What does this reveal of their worldview?  Perhaps these images expressed the possibility of escape, or adventures to new places, or the promise of making a good living while working at sea, or maybe the unique access to goods and information that these vessels may have represented?

Michael Eammons Jr. examining the Gandy House "Ship" planks

These thought-provoking moments, and the great conversations I had with so many VAF attendees, truly made “Down Jersey” a wonderful first VAF experience for me.  I was very thankful to receive a Pamela Simpson Presenter’s Fellowship, which enabled me to attend the event, and to present my research, and I think it’s safe to say that I’m hooked.  It was exciting—and remarkably comfortable—to be surrounded by swarms of other people who are also fascinated by historic buildings and landscapes.  It feels like home.  Presenting my research to a group of people who didn’t listen with blank stares was certainly refreshing, and the feedback I received will be immensely helpful as I continue work on that project.   It was great meeting so many of you on the tours and at paper sessions—I look forward to seeing you again in 2015 at Chicago!

Michael just finished his MA in historic preservation at the University of Delaware, and is beginning his doctoral studies in the Preservation Studies Program there.  He also works in the Center for Historic Architecture and Design at Delaware.  If you know of any interesting markings on buildings, he would love to hear about them.  He can be reached at mjej@udel.edu. 

Monograph of New England Meetinghouses awarded Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize

The 2014 Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize was awarded to Peter Benes’s Meeting Houses of Early New England (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). This monograph is an unparalleled study of a pivotal New England building type.  Benes skillfully analyzes material generated from decades of meticulous research to trace the uneven not always predictable transformation of early New England meetinghouses.  He brings to bear a plethora of source material, to unearth the multiple factors that impacted the production, transformation and scattered survival of this building type.

Benes demonstrates, with specificity, how ecclesiastical practices, precedent, social structure and community aspirations tempered by more mundane realities such as costs, available building materials, natural forces and increased population converge to forge material culture of the past and the remains that survive into the present. Benes  successfully balances informed speculation and an  appreciation of historical ambiguity with a compelling analysis based on a grounded framework open to the reinterpretation of others. This collegial generosity is particularly reflected in more than eighty pages of supplementary historical data. Meeting Houses of Early New England will remain an important work in Vernacular and New England Architectural studies for decades to come.

Peter Benes is Director of the Dublin Seminar for New England Folk Life in affiliation with Historic Deerfield located in Deerfield, Massachusetts

Abbott Lowell Cummings Prize Committee

Elaine Jackson-Retondo, Chair

Matthew Lasner

Richard Longstreth

Conservation Praxis Awarded Paul E. Buchanan Award 2014

The Western Clay Manufacturing Company Conservation Praxis project—winner of the 2014 Buchanan Award-- involved collaboration among the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts, the Montana Preservation Alliance, and the Architectural Conservation Laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania.  The  Western Clay Manufacturing Company site (Helena, Montana) contains several dozen buildings spanning three generations of industrial brickmaking technology going back to the late 1890s. The place itself is of interest to the VAF partly because the kind of products it manufactured – hollow tile, fire brick, and the like – turn up in so many of the vernacular buildings we study. 

The Conservation Praxis project at Western Clay Manufacturing Company attained a high level in architectural fieldwork, worthy of the award named for Paul E. Buchanan, who did so much to set the standard. Over several years, project members assessed and documented the site.  The site became a laboratory for several classes of students who attended an intensive field school there, gaining hands-on knowledge of documentation and conservation techniques.  The end products included a report with stunning drawings, photographs, and diagrams; a building by building conditions assessment;  and movement toward stabilization of a historic “beehive” kiln. The project helps to lay a solid foundation for the site’s preservation and makes a substantive contribution to the preservation of the industrial West.   The project also furnishes a model for partnerships that is worthy of emulation. For all these reasons the Conservation Praxis Project is deserving of recognition with the Paul E. Buchanan Award for 2014.

Paul E. Buchanan Award Committee
Sally McMurry, chair
Tom Carter
Nora Pat Small

Two New Jersey efforts win Awards for Advocacy 2014

The  winners of  2014 Awards for Advocacy are the Bayshore Center at Bivalve for an organization for restoring the A. J. Meerwald and subsequent eco-historical preservation efforts; and Patricia Anne (Annie) and Joseph E. Salvatore for individuals for preserving and interpreting New Jersey’s architectural and cultural heritage at Historic Cold Spring Village. 

In 1988, Meghan Wren began organizing group meetings to establish a non-profit preservation initiative to restore the 1928 Delaware Bay Oyster Schooner A.J. Meerwald.  The group’s intent was not just to rehabilitate a historic artifact, but to use its restoration and preservation as a vehicle to examine the most pressing environmental, historical, and cultural issues confronting Delaware Bay communities, the Delaware Estuary, and the State of New Jersey.  Upon its restoration and re-launching in 1994/1995, Meerwald immediately established itself as one of the region’s most compelling outlets for advancing environmentalism, cultural conservation, and historic preservation for the many people—young and old—who came in contact with it, as well as the many communities it visited.  The ensuing momentum allowed the Bayshore Center to acquire and restore a section of the 1904 Oyster Shipping Sheds at Bivalve, providing an unparalleled interpretive center for understanding the Delaware Bay oyster industry and its wider ecological and historic context.  For these reasons that VAF proudly confers a 2014 Award for Advocacy to the Bayshore Center at Bivalve, located in Port Norris, New Jersey.

Tuckahoe Shop, Historic Cold Spring Village

Anne and Joseph Salvatore’s commitment to vernacular architecture dates back to 1973 when they founded Historic Cold Spring Village in Cape May, New Jersey.  Since then, the couple has collected 18^th- and 19^th-century buildings from across the county, moved them to their 30-acre living history museum, and arranged, restored, and interpreted them.  Maintaining a large number of aging wooden buildings has been a challenge.  That the Salvatores have accomplished this while devising interesting and insightful programs that attract a wide array of visitors is a testament to their dedication, fundraising abilities, and creativity.  Nor have they limited the scope of their efforts to traditional buildings.  After Dr. Joseph Salvatore retired from medical practice in the mid-1990s, he decided to take on the restoration of the dilapidated, 92,000 sq. ft. Hangar No. 1 (another all-wood structure) at the former WWII Naval Air Station, Wildwood.  Through several important grants, he has managed to open a successful aviation museum there.  VAF is delighted to recognize the tireless preservation efforts of this couple with a 2014 Award for Advocacy.

Award For Advocacy Committee
Aaron Wunsch, chair
Michael Chiarappa
Jeroen van den Hurk

Deep Analysis of Dunbar High School awarded Catherine W. Bishir Prize 2014

Washington-Star News cartoon from 1974

Amber Wiley, author of “The Dunbar High School Dilemma: Architecture, Power, and African-American Cultural Heritage,” is awarded the Catherine W. Bishir Prize for her excellent contextualization of an important site: the first African-American public high school in the US. Combining architectural and African-American history with preservation debates, Wiley portrays Dunbar as a crystallization of the social, economic, and political processes that have shaped black experience and education throughout the twentieth century. Following the 1970s debates between old Dunbar alumni, the Washington DC School Board, and teachers and students, when the school faced demolition, Wiley reveals how the building itself reflected and mediated blacks’ understandings of themselves, shaping debates about difference and discord within the black community.  Rebuilt in the 1960s and 70s, but again demolished in 2008, Wiley concludes “the grandiosity of the new design proposed for the school reveals an insecurity about the academic and cultural climate of the institution today, and rests on the belief that architecture has the power to redirect the course of a school that has a depleted and fractured institutional memory.” This article demonstrates the wide range of scholarship celebrated by the VAF, from close analysis of building form to highly contextual synthesis of a building’s meaning.  

Catherine W. Bishir Prize Committee
Sarah Lopez, chair
Michael Chiarappa
Allison Hoagland

Comments by 2014 Bishir Prize winner: Amber Wiley

My formal introduction to Dunbar High School was in 2006.  I had an interest in visiting this prestigious institution, one of the many black institutions in Washington, D.C. that my grandfather would talk about when I visited him at his home in LeDroit Park, simply to soak up the history of its hallowed halls.  Upon arrival to the address listed on the school’s webpage, I was greeted by a stark, ominous 1970s school building, one that in no way resembled the image of Dunbar that I had fashioned in my mind – red brick, white trim.  I was immediately pushed by questions to understand what I was seeing:  “What is this?  When did this happen?  Who thought this was a good idea?”  My research was also pushed by early assumptions: “Clearly this was not something the community wanted, this was forced upon the community by an outside agent.”  When I set upon the task of answering the questions and buoying my assumptions, I discovered that not only was I wrong about the agents of change, but that in a particular time and place – post-riot Washington D.C. – the design of the 1970s Dunbar school represented a new form of Black power.  This new form appropriated the leading avant-garde designs promoted by architecture and educational journals, while espousing a rhetoric of change and egalitarianism that was very important in the transitioning politics of Home Rule in the nation’s capital.  I was overwhelmed and fascinated by the conversations about the meaning of design that were happening in the African American community.  This was the type of dialogue that I longed to hear about, but rarely was exposed to in my formal architectural education.

VAF Chicago 2015

The Vernacular Architecture Forum's 35th Annual Conference heads to Chicago from June 3-7, 2015.

Our theme is "Out of the Loop," and we will venture beyond downtown to explore Chicago's bungalows and bascule bridges, settlement houses and slaughterhouses, corner bars and commercial centers, factories and fencing all beckon analysis.  We invite you to take a closer look at the city's building forms to see the effects of constant change and neighborhoods relentlessly in flux.  The influences of immigration, segregation, gentrification, and de-industrialization are readily apparent on the city's landscape.

Please visit our VAF Chicago 2015 Conference Website for more details on the dramatic venues, off-the-beaten path tours, and engaging lectures in store.

On Saturday, June 6, the conference will include a day of paper sessions.  The Call for Papers is available on the conference website and also in included here in the newsletter.

Roosevelt University will serve as conference headquarters, and they are offering affordable private dorm rooms to keep costs surprisingly affordable.

We look forward to seeing you in Chicago in June 2015!

Call for Papers: VAF Chicago 2015

The Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) invites paper proposals for its Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, June 3-7, 2015.

Iconic tall buildings are Chicago’s hallmark, yet it is the bungalow belts, bascule bridges, and “L” train lines that beckon vernacular analysis. Chicago is a network of neighborhoods with ubiquitous building forms, but a closer analysis reveals constant change and a diverse tapestry of communities frayed by the legacies of segregation. For the 2015 conference, the theme Neighborhoods in Transition will guide VAF as we go “Out of the Loop” and into the city’s vast grid to reflect on the regeneration or dissolution of community. Buildings, streetscapes, and neighborhoods will be VAF’s point of departure for its investigation of Chicago’s spatial and social patterns, material evidence and existential boundaries, and communal and cultural identities.

Papers for VAF Chicago may address vernacular and everyday buildings, sites, or cultural landscapes worldwide. Submissions on all vernacular topics are welcome, and for the 2015 Conference, we encourage papers that ask questions of the built environment and engineered ecologies for which Chicago represents a seminal model or serves as case study for trends occurring nationally and internationally. Trends include those in the architectural and building trades, in industrial and commercial sectors and for the workers in those arenas, in urban and city planning, and in models for societal restructuring that include urban renewal, relocation, and public housing.

Submitting an Abstract

Papers should be analytical rather than descriptive, and no more than twenty-minutes in length.  Proposals for complete sessions, roundtable discussions or other innovative means that facilitate scholarly discourse are especially encouraged. Proposals must be one-page, fewer than 400 words, and include the paper title, author’s name, and email address. You may include up to two images with your submission. Please clearly state the argument of the paper and explain the methodology and content. Attach a one-page CV to your proposal submission.

Presenters must deliver their papers in person and be VAF members at the time of the conference. Speakers who do not register for the conference by March 1, 2015, will be withdrawn. Please do not submit an abstract if you are not committed to attending the papers session on Saturday, June 6^th. There may be limited financial assistance, in the form of Pamela H. Simpson Presenter’s Fellowships, to offset registration costs to students and recent graduates.

The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2014, and submissions should be emailed to the VAF Papers Committee Chair at papers@vafweb.org. For general information about the Chicago conference, please see www.vafchicago.org.

VAF Bibliography (Summer 2014)

Ahmed, Namir, Michael Carter, and Neal Ferris. “Sustainable Archaeology through Progressive Assembly 3D Digitization.” World Archaeology 46, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 137–54.

Andres, Glenn M., and Curtis B. Johnson. Buildings of Vermont. Buildings of the United States. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014.

Babcock, Matthew. “Roots of Independence: Transcultural Trade in the Texas-Louisiana Borderlands.” Ethnohistory 60 (Spring 2013): 245–68.

Barjot, Dominique. “‘Why Was the World Construction Industry Dominated by European Leaders?’ The Development of the Largest European Firms from the Late 19th to the Early 21st Centuries.” Construction History: Journal of the Construction History Society 28, no. 3 (2013): 89–114.

Bartolini, Nadia. “Critical Urban Heritage: From Palimpsest to Brecciation.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 20, no. 5 (May 24, 2013): 519–33.

Becchi, Antonio. “Looking for an Equilibrium Point: Wilson, Machiavelli, and the King of Siam.” Construction History: Journal of the Construction History Society 28, no. 3 (2013): 1–20.

Bennett, Tony, Ben Dibley, and Rodney Harrison. “Introduction: Anthropology, Collecting and Colonial Governmentalities.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 2 (March 3, 2014): 137–49.

Buchanan, Jonathan. “Bethel: Mountain Tobacco Farming in Western North Carolina.” Appalachian Journal 40 (Summer 2013): 232–64.

Burnard, Trevor, and Emma Hart. “Kingston, Jamaica, and Charleston, South Carolina: A New Look at Comparative Urbanization in Plantation Colonial British America.” Journal of Urban History 39 (March 2013): 214–34.

Cameron, Fiona Ruth. “From ‘Dead Things’ to Immutable, Combinable Mobiles: H.D. Skinner, the Otago Museum and University and the Governance of Māori Populations.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 2 (March 3, 2014): 208–26.

Carnevale, Nancy C. “Italian American and African American Encounters in the City and in the Suburb.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 536–62.

Carroll, Fred. “The Racial Politics of Place: Jim Crow, the New Deal, and Suburban Housing on the Virginia Peninsula.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 514–35.

Carson, Cary. “Banqueting Houses and the ‘Need of Society’ among Slave-Owning Planters in the Chesapeake Colonies.” William and Mary Quarterly 70 (October 2013): 725–80.

Clausen, Meredith L. “Michael Graves’s Portland Building: Power, Politics, and Postmodernism.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 73, no. 2 (June 2014): 248–69.

Clowney, Stephen. “Landscape Fairness: Removing Discrimination from the Built Environment.” Utah Law Review 2013, no. 1 (2013): 1–62.

Clukey, Ann. “Plantation Modernity: Gone with the Wind and Irish-Southern Culture.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History 85 (September 2013): 505–30.

Cummins, Light Townsend. “The Southern Spanish Borderlands: Spain’s Colonial History in the American South.” Southern Studies 20 (2013): 1–12.

De Raedt, Kim. “Between ‘true Believers’ and Operational Experts: UNESCO Architects and School Building in Post-Colonial Africa.” The Journal of Architecture 19, no. 1 (January 2, 2014): 19–42.

Depew, Briggs, Price V. Fishback, and Paul W. Rhode. “New Deal or No Deal in the Cotton South: The Effect of the AAA on the Agricultural Labor Structure.” Explorations in Economic History 50 (October 2013): 466–86.

Deyong, Sarah. “An Architectural Theory of Relations: Siegfried Giedion and Team X.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 73, no. 2 (June 2014): 226–47.

Dias, Nélia. “Rivet’s Mission in Colonial Indochina (1931–1932) or the Failure to Create an Ethnographic Museum.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 2 (March 3, 2014): 189–207.

Dills, Randall. “Cracks in the Granite: Paternal Care, the Imperial Façade, and the Limits of Authority in the 1824 St. Petersburg Flood.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 479–96.

Edwards, Elizabeth. “Photographic Uncertainties: Between Evidence and Reassurance.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 2 (March 3, 2014): 171–88.

Fan, Li. “International Influence and Local Response: Understanding Community Involvement in Urban Heritage Conservation in China.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 20, no. 6 (September 12, 2013): 651–62.

Fletchall, Ann. “Making Sense of the Strip: The Postmodern Pastiche of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.” Southeastern Geographer 52 (Spring 2013): 102–22.

Force, Pierre. “The House on Bayou Road: Atlantic Creole Networks in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Journal of American History 100 (June 2013): 21–45.

Francesco, Michael G. “Peruvians in Paterson: The Growth and Establishment of a Peruvian American Community within the Multiethnic Immigrant History of Paterson, New Jersey.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 497–513.

Gissen, David. Manhattan Atmospheres: Architecture, the Interior Environment, and Urban Crisis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.

Gray, LaGuana. “’Arkansas’s First Boomtown’: El Dorado and the Emergence of the Poultry Processing Industry.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 72 (Autumn 2013): 197–221.

Guterl, Matthew Pratt. “The Futures of Transnational History.” American Historical Review 118 (February 2013): 130–39.

Harrison, Rodney. “Observing, Collecting and Governing ‘Ourselves’ and ‘Others’: Mass-Observation’s Fieldwork Agencements.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 2 (March 3, 2014): 227–45.

Hatziprokopiou, Panos, and Venetia Evergeti. “Negotiating Muslim Identity and Diversity in Greek Urban Spaces.” Social & Cultural Geography 15, no. 6 (March 28, 2014): 603–26.

Hell, Maarten. “Trade, Transport, and Storage in Amsterdam Inns (1450–1800).” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 4 (July 1, 2014): 742–61.

Hirsch, Allison Brick. City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Horst, Jesse. “Shantytown Revolution: Slum Clearance, Rent Control, and the Cuban State, 1937–1955.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 4 (July 1, 2014): 699–718.

Jung, Sanghoon. “Oswald Nagler, HURPI, and the Formation of Urban Planning and Design in South Korea: The South Seoul Plan by HURPI and the Mok-Dong Plan.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 3 (May 1, 2014): 585–605.

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Karp, Michael. “The St. Louis Rent Strike of 1969: Transforming Black Activism and American Low-Income Housing.” Journal of Urban History 40, no. 4 (July 1, 2014): 648–70.

Karttunen, Marie-Louise. “Repatriates or Refugees? Narrating the Loss of Transnational Community.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 3 (September 26, 2013): 375–94.

Kastrinou, A. Maria A. “Sect and House in Syria: History, Architecture, and Bayt Amongst the Druze in Jaramana.” History and Anthropology 25, no. 3 (January 30, 2014): 313–35.

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Call for Nominations: Serve on the VAF BOARD

VAF’s nominating committee is seeking nominations for individuals to serve as members of the Board of Directors and as officers for the organization.

 Board members serve three-year terms. Individuals nominated this year will begin service in May 2015.

The Vernacular Architecture Forum is administered by an all-volunteer Board of Directors made up of dedicated professionals and scholars from diverse disciplines who live and work in all parts of the United States and Canada. The Board meets twice a year, once during our annual conference in the Spring and again in the Fall. Each Board member is expected to attend Board meetings and participate in committee work.

Nominations for Board membership should be sent to Claire Dempsey at nominations@vafweb.org. Please include a short letter (not exceeding one page) indicating the qualifications of the person being nominated and a short vita/resume (not exceeding two pages). Self-nominations are encouraged. Nominees must be members of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. A list of VAF Board members and officers (both current and recent past) is available here.

Deadline for Nominations:  August 1, 2014.

—Claire Dempsey, 1st Vice President