A singular find, a global story: an artefact Biography of a French tobacco pipestem found at an American Civil War encampment in Williamsburg, VA

Abstract

SUMMARY: This paper takes a microhistorical approach to the examination of a marked clay pipestem found at an American Civil War Encampment in Williamsburg, VA. A biography of the object, from its manufacture at the Fiolet factory in Saint Omer, France to its use in Williamsburg VA, is used as an interpretive tool to investigate the meanings of this object to its consumer. By comparing this site to other sites in the English-speaking world where similarly marked objects have been recovered by archaeologists, the nature and causes of globalization in the second half of the 1800s are examined. This research demonstrates the value of bottom-up, artefact-focused research when examining important questions about large scale historical events and processes.