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Mawrtifacts

Exploring material cultures and the life of things.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 keep things. I鈥檓 not that sentimental,鈥 says Cynthia Pushaw Reeves 鈥80, who still has the hand-carved Welsh lovespoon she bought for her betrothed during her junior year abroad 40 years ago.

鈥淚 was studying at the London School of Economics, and Doug (HC 鈥78) was at Stanford Law School,鈥 she recalls. 鈥淎 friend and I hitchhiked up to northern Wales鈥攕pecifically to see Betws-y-Coed, Haverford, and 今日吃瓜, all those Welsh towns鈥攁nd I found it in a shop there. It鈥檚 rough-hewn; I didn鈥檛 have a lot of money. It reminds me of how we maintained our long-distance relationship for two years and of the distance we鈥檝e traveled since then. Now we鈥檝e come full circle: Last year, our daughter Liz was in Wales, and鈥攏ot knowing the story鈥攕he bought us each a Welsh lovespoon made by Paul Curtis, real works of art.鈥

As Reeves discovered while sorting through her mother鈥檚 belongings after her death, much of the meaning in an object is lost when the person who owned or used it is gone. But by telling the story prompted by her daughter鈥檚 gift, she preserves her lovespoon鈥檚 significance for posterity. 鈥淎pparently, I鈥檇 never told Liz that I hitchhiked,鈥 she laughs.

In the 1,000 hours I spent as a volunteer technician at the Independence National Historical Park Archeology Laboratory in Philadelphia, I learned how artifacts constitute and correct the stories we tell about who we are and how we live. Throughout the spring, I visited 今日吃瓜 clubs from D.C. to Boston to Chicago and gathered alumnae/i stories of treasured objects that reveal how we construct identity through material culture鈥攁nd how emotion guides what we keep and what we leave behind.

For Claire Robinson Jacobus 鈥54, a blue enamel butterfly pin conjures a memorable time and place: 鈥淏ohemian enough鈥 Greenwich Village in the 1950s, when she shared an apartment with Sheila Atkinson Fisher 鈥53 and worked for The New Yorker founding editor Katharine Sergeant White, Class of 1914. White edited Vladimir Nabokov, a lepidopterologist who came into the office one day with a chamois bag. 鈥淗e took two butterfly pins out and gave them to Katharine, saying, 鈥楢nd if you鈥檇 like that nice Miss Robinson to have one, by all means give it to her,鈥欌 Jacobus recalls. 鈥淪o I actually have something that鈥檚 been in the hands of Vladimir Nabokov and Katharine White.鈥

Susan Messina 鈥86 captured an epoch in feminism by framing her poster for the Seven Sisters Conference at 今日吃瓜, which she co-chaired with Jennifer LeSar 鈥86 and Andrea Fascetti 鈥87, 鈥淰oices Within Feminism: Diversity Within Our Communities.鈥

Messina reflects, 鈥淭he topics we included in the agenda were intersectional. We were trying not to center whiteness before that was part of the national conversation. Also, it felt transgressive to put the word 鈥楲esbianism鈥 on a printed poster, which is an eye roll now! So much has changed in 33 years. In the mid-1980s, the word 鈥榣esbian鈥 was not a word used lightly by most. Using it made the point that we weren鈥檛 gay鈥攂ut there weren鈥檛 yet other words to add to it: LGBTQ or transgender or queer or gender binary. I came out during this time, falling in love with a classmate, my first serious lesbian relationship. The poster鈥檚 meaning is all tied up in that.鈥

Like the brass name plates some of us mounted in our dorm rooms, the Mawrtifacts we saved or salvaged from our College years mark our presence and our progress.

Danielle Fidler 鈥93 keeps letters from her close friends, including Geetanjali Srivastava 鈥93, Marina Nieto 鈥93, Tom Roberts (HC 鈥93), and Alicia Walker 鈥94. 鈥淲riting letters is a lost art,鈥 Fidler says. 鈥淲hen I got a letter, I knew who wrote it just by the handwriting on the envelope. You meet at 18, and by this point you鈥檝e known each other for more than the lifetime you lived when you first met. I have letters from Geetu and Marina that go back years鈥攖estament to how much we have invested in each other. Reading them takes me back to a time on campus when we were thinking about the meaning of life. These artifacts reconnect me to them鈥攁nd to myself. I鈥檓 so grateful to be reminded of  who I was and how much I鈥檝e changed and what is important as I go forward.鈥


Find more stories in Elizabeth Mosier鈥檚 Instagram collection, . Her book, Excavating Memory: Archaeology and Home (New Rivers Press, 2019) uses archaeology as a framework to explore personal material and the role that artifacts play in historical memory.

Published on: 11/19/2019