{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115480"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/115480","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"“Matters have improved beyond description”: Archaeology of Alexandria, Virginia’s German Jewish community","abstract":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","abstract_html":"Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Niculescu, Tatiana"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Anthropology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Fennell, Christopher","Ambrose, Stanley","Frankenberg, Susan","Bishop, Katelyn J.","De Lucia, Kristin"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2022,"date_issued":"2022-05","date_published":"2022-05","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z","subjects":["Historical Archaeology","Jewish History","Virginia"],"languages":["en","eng"],"rights":["Copyright 2022 Tatiana Niculescu"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115480","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Fennell, Christopher","Ambrose, Stanley","Frankenberg, Susan","Bishop, Katelyn J.","De Lucia, Kristin"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Niculescu, Tatiana"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2022-05","2022-04-19"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text","Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Anthropology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Historical Archaeology","Jewish History","Virginia"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en","eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2022 Tatiana Niculescu"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115480"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","The student, Tatiana Niculescu, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-18 at 12:04.","The student, Tatiana Niculescu, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-18 at 12:11.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-19 at 13:44.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17748 on 2022-11-11 at 13:15:32","This study seeks to understand the cultural processes by which Jewish individuals and communities formed and negotiated social identities in Alexandria, Virginia between the 1850s and 1920s. For the purposes of this study, Jewishness is defined as a social identity shaped by religion, ethnicity, and race. One cultural process includes the dynamics of religious interpretation and practice. This process was reinforced and cross-cut by another process, the development and maintenance of diasporic social networks. Finally, these first two processes were complicated by the prevailing and changing racial ideologies of the time period, which were perpetuated and challenged by both outsiders and American Jews. I explore the entanglement of these three processes as Jewish Alexandrians obtained and used household goods and foods in ways that reflected and created religious and diasporic identities and signaled aspirations which implicated socially created racial categories. In this work, I examine the ways in which material culture, spatial patterns, and historical trends reflect broader changes and continuities in the American Jewish experience. The theoretical and methodological approach developed in this work examines the negotiation of Jewishness at both the household and community level. By tacking back and forth among historical records, spatial data, and archaeological remains, this analysis provides a robust portrait of life in the diaspora beyond what was known from congregational histories and beyond large urban centers. By taking an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar approach, I seek to systematically test many of the long-held assumptions about American Jewish household and community identities using archaeological and documentary evidence. Specifically, I explore how households negotiated their religious identities, how households and communities created and reinforced diasporic networks through material remains and social and economic relationships, and how households and communities used material goods, space, and documents in negotiating their place within a racialized American landscape."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["“Matters have improved beyond description”: Archaeology of Alexandria, Virginia’s German Jewish community"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Fennell, Christopher","Ambrose, Stanley","Frankenberg, Susan","Bishop, Katelyn J.","De Lucia, Kristin"],"dc:creator":["Niculescu, Tatiana"],"dc:date":["2022-05","2022-04-19"],"dc:description":["Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2022-11-11 without embargo terms","The student, Tatiana Niculescu, accepted the attached license on 2022-04-18 at 12:04.","The student, Tatiana Niculescu, submitted this Dissertation for approval on 2022-04-18 at 12:11.","This Dissertation was approved for publication on 2022-04-19 at 13:44.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #17748 on 2022-11-11 at 13:15:32","This study seeks to understand the cultural processes by which Jewish individuals and communities formed and negotiated social identities in Alexandria, Virginia between the 1850s and 1920s. For the purposes of this study, Jewishness is defined as a social identity shaped by religion, ethnicity, and race. One cultural process includes the dynamics of religious interpretation and practice. This process was reinforced and cross-cut by another process, the development and maintenance of diasporic social networks. Finally, these first two processes were complicated by the prevailing and changing racial ideologies of the time period, which were perpetuated and challenged by both outsiders and American Jews. I explore the entanglement of these three processes as Jewish Alexandrians obtained and used household goods and foods in ways that reflected and created religious and diasporic identities and signaled aspirations which implicated socially created racial categories. In this work, I examine the ways in which material culture, spatial patterns, and historical trends reflect broader changes and continuities in the American Jewish experience. The theoretical and methodological approach developed in this work examines the negotiation of Jewishness at both the household and community level. By tacking back and forth among historical records, spatial data, and archaeological remains, this analysis provides a robust portrait of life in the diaspora beyond what was known from congregational histories and beyond large urban centers. By taking an interdisciplinary and multi-scalar approach, I seek to systematically test many of the long-held assumptions about American Jewish household and community identities using archaeological and documentary evidence. Specifically, I explore how households negotiated their religious identities, how households and communities created and reinforced diasporic networks through material remains and social and economic relationships, and how households and communities used material goods, space, and documents in negotiating their place within a racialized American landscape."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115480"],"dc:language":["en","eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2022 Tatiana Niculescu"],"dc:subject":["Historical Archaeology","Jewish History","Virginia"],"dc:title":["“Matters have improved beyond description”: Archaeology of Alexandria, Virginia’s German Jewish community"],"dc:type":["text","Thesis"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Anthropology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:54Z"}