This book began as a dissertation—indeed, a seminar paper—with Nancy Walker, who inspired many and made merely imagined things seem matter-of-fact realities. I’d like to thank her for the beginnings, then, even though she cannot see the ending. I owe an unpayable debt to the other faculty who contributed incisive commentary and professional guidance for the dissertation as well as the book: Teresa Goddu, Cecelia Tichi, Michael Kreyling, and Larry McKee. These are included among the scholars who generously lent their time to critique specific chapters; I am grateful as well to Suzanne Bost, Deandra Little, Alison Piepmeier, and Lynn Myrick for their timely help. I would also thank Lori Merish, who with an article in the early 1990s showed me that my lifelong love of both archaeology and literature could, in fact, be put to use, and whose work continues to challenge me. For their technical support, I must thank Kathryn DuRant Johnson and Dan Gage, always within reach of a telephone’s beckon and ready with their expertise. For innumerable daily enablings, I will be forever grateful to Dori Mikus, Janis May, Natalie Baggett, Carolyn Levinson, and Sara Corbit.
I also want to thank my family. Thanks to my parents, Jim and Glenna McKivergan. Thanks to Tom and Gail Heneghan, for the time. Thanks to Connor and Máille, most especially, for perspective, and to Shaun Heneghan, for everything.
A different version of chapter 1 appears as “The Pot Calling the Kettle: White Goods and the Construction of Race in Antebellum America” in Nineteenth Century Studies 17. I must thank the journal and the editor, David Hanson, for working with me at length, as well as the reviewers, especially John Michael Vlach, who volunteered his name and his office time to helping me refine my ideas.
At the University Press of Mississippi, Craig Gill has untiringly guided me through the process, and his contributions and correspondences were always a joy. Especial thanks, also, to the anonymous reviewer who applied such constructive, insightful, and concrete criticism to my initial draft.