| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.2

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 294 words from this article are provided below; about 616 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 110.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Bridget T. Heneghan. Whitewashing America: Material Culture and Race in the Antebellum Imagination. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 2003. Pp. xxvii, 204. $45.00.
Bridget T. Heneghan draws on a diverse array of archaeological, literary, and other textual sources to support the thesis that "whiteness," as a racial category, was constituted through a discursive relationship between gentile practice and material goods. White goods, such as ceramics, gravestones, houses, and women's clothing, became popular in the late eighteenth century among the elite as the white/black racial binary that has come to characterize American society became entrenched. White goods were not only more popular as the nineteenth century progressed but became more highly valued than nonwhite items.	1
In favoring white materials, Heneghan suggests, the white elite was legitimating the racial hierarchy and making assertions about the relative worth of white versus black persons. So pervasive was the reification of whiteness through white materials, argues Heneghan, it is evidenced in the literary works of white authors like James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, and Herman Melville, among others. Indeed, African-American authors such as Frederick Douglass and Linda Brent were also aware of the materiality of whiteness and sought to problematize and counter it in their abolitionist writings.	2
Heneghan focuses on a limited number of issues, stating her thesis in her brief introduction and then offering four chapters that focus on particular aspects of that thesis. In the first chapter she presents the majority of the material culture evidence, predominantly derived from archaeological and literary sources. Because Heneghan's entire thesis hinges upon whether her reader is convinced by the evidence presented in this chapter, I will give some attention to this portion of the work.	. . .

There are about 616 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.