Jewish Material Culture in the Early American Republic, 1776-1840

Jewish American identity underwent a radical transformation during the early Republic, as Jews struggled to gain full civil rights in Europe, North America, and the Caribbean. Yet even as emancipation invoked the promise of Jewish political equality, non-Jewish artists, writers, and thinkers increasingly depicted early American Jews as inherently different. During the emancipation era, race and gender were increasingly seen as located in Jews’ physical bodies, rather than in their religious practices or beliefs. In this class we look at how Jews used material culture between 1776-1840 to shape their identities and respond to newly racialized understandings of Jews. We will explore a large range of objects including fashion, wigs, domestic interiors, marriage contracts, gravestones, and portraits. The timid should beware, as course assignments will include field trips to cemeteries in order to do iconographic and seriation studies. We will also take advantage of archival resources at American Jewish Historical Society and Jewish Theological Seminary. This course offers an introduction to a variety of methods from Digital Humanities and includes digital assignments. 3 credits. Based on final research project, this course could fulfill the pre-1800 requirement.