Georgian Place Settings

The Georgian Order of James Deetz can be tied to the arrival of merchant capitalism. The indices are forms of cutlery and ceramic tableware. The catalogs for Archaeology in Annapolis that have materials dating to as early as 1680 can be used to analyze the arrival of cutlery and tablewares by sets and thus can be an index of the Georgian Order.

How quickly do individual households, including African American households, use matched cutlery and matched table settings. How completely do people in Annapolis, of all races, adopt the material culture of the pattern identified by Deetz? How completely did African Americans use the pattern? How completely did they avoid the pattern? Because African American material in Annapolis dates as early as 1720, strong longitudinal arrays of material answering these questions exists.

James Deetz used the idea of the Georgian Order to organize a range of material artifacts from New England dating from throughout the 17th century to the early 19th century. Members of Archaeology in Annapolis used his ideas to examine the pattern in the Chesapeake region. Questions still remain about the usefulness of his ideas including its meaning and universality. The material on this website can be used to examine the ideas proposed by Deetz.