Slave Cabin Picture

Slave Cabin Assignment (Picture to be added ASAP)

McKenna Wilder

INTD 108

Professor Rainville 

Slave Cabin 

Sweet Briar College is what I would call a historical hot spot. Partially, this is what attracted me to this particular school over any of the others I applied and was accepted to. Before coming to Sweet Briar I had done my share of research on the history of the land and thought I had found out all I needed to know about the plantation and the family that had owned it. I was completely mistaken. Upon my arrival at Sweet Briar I learned so much more about the land than I even knew existed. However, until my Learning on the Land experience I had absolutely no idea that the campus had an existing Slave Cabin right behind the Plantation House. During the two hours we spent exploring the campus I was surprised to learn so much about the history of the slaves at Sweet Briar. While I was not completely naive to the fact that the college was previously a plantation and obviously had slaves, I was surprised to find that we have both a slave cemetery and one of the last standing Slave Cabins. 

Upon reading more about the history of the cabin and what it has gone through over the years I got to thinking, what purpose will the cabin hold in the future? The cabin has already gone through an array of different uses. During the years that the plantation was running it housed an array of different people from overseers like Logan Anderson to families of nineteen or twenty like that of Sterling Jones. More recently the cabin has been used as an Alumnae House, Chapel and a retreat for students. Most recently it has housed a farm equipment museum. Personally, after reviewing much of the history about the cabin I believe that it should be preserved in the way that it is now. I find it so interesting that the cabin was a home to so many different people and is still pretty much all original, minus the minor updates that needed to be completed. The cabin is a historical monument and should be treated as one. This involves light use of the cabin in order to preserve and protect what still exists. Holding onto the rich history of this land is what makes Sweet Briar so special. If the college were to use the cabin everyday or for the purpose of a retreat it is going to deteriorate more quickly which makes it so that the history of the land is going to disappear more rapidly. The rapid deterioration of the cabin would mean that it won’t be around for future generations and if that is the case then the history of the land is going to disappear leaving it harder to explain what went on here.  

When I first learned about the Slave Cabin many different questions came to mind, who lived here? Why did they live right behind the plantation house? How is this the only cabin that is still in existence on the campus? My first two questions were answered both by common sense and a bit of historical knowledge from Professor Rainville. The last question still seems to be a mystery to me. It seems strange that the plantation housed so many of these cabins and this is the only one still in existence. As Professor Rainville stated even the foundations of the other cabins haven’t been found which strikes me as odd. It is obvious that over time things were built over as the educational buildings and dorms came into play but it seems like somewhere over the years other sites of cabins would be found. That is why it is extremely important that this cabin is preserved for future generations. 

Personally, I believe that the cabin needs to remain in the state that it is currently in. I’m not sure if there is any other way to make students want to come and visit the cabin in the future. The history of the cabin is so important that if it were to be made into anything else the campus risks ruining this great piece of history. If anything, the cabin should be made into a museum representing the history of the enslaved that lived on the Sweet Briar campus. It would provide a background to the slave cabin and to the history of the plantation. If this were the case, students would be able to have their questions answered about Sweet Briar history. 

Dr. Arjun Appadurai

Dr. Arjun Appadurai was born (1949) and raised in Mumbai, India. He graduated high school and received his Intermediate Arts Degree from Elphinstone College in Mumbai before moving to the United States. In 1970, he received his Bachelors degree from Brandeis University. (Wilk) Over the course of the years he has had many different jobs at an array of different colleges. He was a professor at the University of Chicago where he received both his Masters and his PhD and is now a faculty member of New York University’s Media Culture and Communication Department. Dr. Appadurai’s anthropological studies heavily focus on both Media and Communication which has caused some skepticism among other anthropologists. (Goddard)

Appadurai has done field work in London as well as India. He seems to have an especially large focus on India. Through his work he has focused on the concepts that help an anthropologist approach subjects such as modernity, globalization and public culture. These topics were not and still remain hardly touched by anthropologists and Appadurai has focused heavily on incorporating these into anthropological studies. He heavily focuses on modernity and published a book entitled “Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization”.  (Wilk) Many anthropologists don’t believe that modernity is a logical anthropological study and therefore are still having trouble grasping his theory. Appadurai heavily believes that anthropology is a “series of lived actualities” (Wilk) He has helped anthropology develop and has pushed new realms into anthropological studies. He is a "leading figure" in his field of work. (Goddard) 

Currency Project

Creating a Currency

While one would think that designing a system of currency is an easy task it proves to be much more challenging than previously anticipated. The word currency is defined by dictionary.com as “something that is used as a medium of exchange; money”. When you think about it currency can be anything that can be traded for something else of the same value. But this begs the question, what is value? The definition of currency is an extremely broad one, which just goes to prove the point that designing a system of currency is challenging. When I began thinking about a currency that would work at Sweet Briar many different things came to mind. There were some that were obvious such as pearls, tap club hats, class mottos and class t-shirts and then some that weren’t so obvious such as pens, puffy paint and finally the one thing I decided upon, flowers. 

So, imagine a Sweet Briar that uses flowers solely for the purpose of purchasing everything. This would translate to food, books, riding blocks, class dues etc. When one thinks about flowers at Sweet Briar the obvious two that come to mind are daisy’s and roses. The currency at Sweet Briar needs to involve more than two flowers though. So in addition to the Sweet Briar rose other types of roses will be used as well. If I had to assign dollar values to the flowers they would go something like this: Mini roses would be worth any coins, the Daisy would be ten to fifteen dollars, Floribunda roses would be worth sixteen to twenty five dollars, Hybrid Tea roses would be worth twenty six to thirty five dollars, Grandiflora roses would be worth forty to fifty five dollars, Climber roses would be worth sixty to seventy five dollars and Sweet Briar roses would be worth seventy five to two hundred dollars. As you can see, there is no set pattern of value to these flowers because if they are going to be used as currency they need a loose set of values and a wide variety so people can purchase multiple things. When it comes to how much specific items are going to cost, things are going to have to change. Prices of items for sale at Sweet Briar are going to have to decline. There is not an abundance of daisy’s or roses available therefore, costs of items are going to have to decrease to support the currency. If things were ridiculously expensive the people of SBC would run out of ways to buy things before the actual item ran out. 

Creating a theory of value isn’t something that comes to a person easily. Every person has a different idea of what a certain object is valued at. This differentiation proves that when one person creates a theory of value not everyone else is going to agree. Assigning importance to commodities such as books, food and riding blocks are going to change from person to person. One person may decide that books are worth more than food while another may decided that riding blocks are more important than books. This would happen with any item that someone attempted to create a value for. Not only is the individuals ideal going to affect the theory of value but the term value itself proves to be very loose. Value is what the individual makes it, therefore objects are going to have different values. This tends to tie into the differentiation that people have for certain objects. 

If a prediction needed to be made about how the change in currency is going to effect Sweet Briar life then I would separate it into two parts. First, I believe that the items that are for sale at school would need to decrease in price. If the items were to remain as expensive as they are now people would run out of currency faster than the items themselves ran out. Second, there would need to be a way that we could keep an abundance of these different types of flowers readily available. Whether it be by growing them or having a place solely for the purpose of breeding these different types of flowers we need to create an abundance of them or the currency will never be able to take affect. I do not believe that this would change the socioeconomic patterns that are already in existence.  There would still be an upper, middle and lower class and some people would still be able to afford more than others. It would depend on who had the most access to the flowers, who had the most say in getting them and how important the person was in the society. Changing the currency doesn’t mean that things are going to flip completely upside down it just means that patterns of purchasing and gaining income are going to be altered. Overall, I do believe that things would change however, they may be able to stay relatively the same all the while. 

Art

This is in Benedict. I thought it was interesting with the cows on the barren landscape.

Campus

I've spent the past few days attempting to get to know my new home. This started with the Learning on the Land orientation group "Cemeteries and Ruins" headed by Professor Rainville. This informative walk took me from learning the architecture of the school to a slave cemetery above the lakes. Sweet Briar's campus is full of places that not only provide nice sights but also educational experiences. Yesterday, I decided to take a run. Exploring campus on my own gave me a whole new appreciation for where I am. From the dairy farms to the deer in the woods I couldn't believe how many things I hadn't taken the time to appreciate. I know that as my time goes on here I will find even more places I had no idea existed. But for now, these two experiences gave me a whole new appreciation of the place that I now call my home.

y:1 Historical Photo

These columns most likely represent Corinthian columns. The intricate design at the top of the columns is what separates it from Doric and Ionic columns.

Building: Benedict