On Tuesday, January 5, 2016, Robert F. Maslowski will present “Plantation Archeology, Industrial Slavery and the Glenwood Project” in the Archives and History Library of the Culture Center in Charleston. The program will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Slave-based agriculture and the salt industry were two of the most important economic pursuits in the early history of West Virginia. Plantation slavery differed from the industrial slavery of the salt manufactures in that many of the slaves in the salt industry were leased on a yearly basis from plantations. While most of the leased slaves came from eastern plantations, records indicate that some local plantation owners, such as George Summers, owner of the Glenwood and Walnut Grove plantations, also leased slaves to salt makers.
Maslowski will discuss and compare the results of archeological excavations at the Jenkins Plantation on the Ohio River, the Reynolds home and slave cabin at the Marmet Lock Replacement Project, and the Glenwood Estate in West Charleston.
Maslowski holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Holy Cross College, Massachusetts, and received his doctorate in anthropology/archeology from the University of Pittsburgh. He is a retired archeologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Huntington. Maslowski has done extensive archeological work in the Ohio Valley on prehistoric and historic sites, and he also has worked in Trans-Pecos Texas, Israel, Cyprus, Vietnam, and Laos. He currently teaches Appalachian courses at Marshall University Graduate College in South Charleston. Maslowski was the executive producer for three award-winning archeology films: Red Salt & Reynolds (2003), Ghosts of Green Bottom (2005), and Secrets of the Valley: Prehistory of the Kanawha (2010). He is a former editor of the journal West Virginia Archeologist.
For additional information, contact the Archives and History Library at (304) 558-0230.
