Bringing up the Byrnes family: an archaeological and historical exploration of Irish americanization at the Wakefield Estate, Milton, Massachusetts, 1890–1930
Belkin, Sara Elizabeth
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Excavations at the Mary M. B. Wakefield Estate in rural Milton, Massachusetts produced an assemblage of household artifacts linked to the Byrnes family, a first-generation Irish-American family who lived in the estate’s farmhouse in the early twentieth century. Though the Byrneses were born in America, they were part of the Irish Diaspora, a community defined by its place outside Ireland yet connected to their homeland and to each other through the self-identification as a member of a diaspora, termed a diasporic consciousness. Through a focus on everyday household practices, I examine how members of the family formed their social identities by balancing the appeal of Americanization with the pull of their Irish heritage. Archaeologists studying the Irish Diaspora have largely focused on the nineteenth-century urban Irish immigrant experience. By reconstructing Milton’s Irish landscape in this period through documentary evidence and spatial analysis, I expand on previous studies by exploring how geographical context and generational status shape the creation and maintenance of a diasporic consciousness. I find that the Irish in Milton, and particularly the Byrnes family, had far less access to the traditional social, cultural, and economic features of urban Irish immigrant enclaves of previous generations, such as the presence of churches, Irish-owned stores, voluntary associations, and Irish neighborhoods. Analyses of artifacts related to foodways and dining, personal adornment and dress, and childrearing and children’s play demonstrate alternate strategies that the Byrnes family used to maintain traditional aspects of Irish society. They purchased specific types and quantities of tableware and beverages needed to fulfill the customs and traditions of Irish hospitality, and infused their daily lives with Catholic devotional rituals and childrearing beliefs. But while they engaged in Irish cultural and religious traditions, they did so within larger household practices that expressed their adoption of American ideals of respectability and refinement, thriftiness, morality, efficiency, and hygiene. By setting a formal table, wearing refined dress, and executing appropriate infant care, the Byrnes constructed a domestic sphere that enabled them to form their own version of respectable Irish-American identity that remained even after they left the farmhouse.