These twelve essays focus on the struggle to professionalize Americanist archaeology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Controlled by antiquarian and aristocratic collectors in the mid-nineteenth century, the field passed into the hands of professionals practicing a full-fledged archaeological science by the early twentieth century.
The authors deal both with mainstreams in archaeological thought, professionalization, and science and with the relationship of archaeology to American society and culture. During the developmental struggles, powerful men and institutions marginalized women, ethnic minorities, the lower and middle classes, and practitioners with the wrong pedigree, and blocked research agendas that diverged from the norm.
In addition to Kehoe, contributors include Elin D. Danien, Donald McVicker, Neil Asher Silberman, Lawrence G. Desmond, William G. Dever, Stephen L. Dyson, James W. Halporn, Mary Ann Levine, Susan J. Bender, Don D. Fowler, and Jonathon E. Reyman.
