Salvage memory: constellating material histories on a hardscrabble homestead

Abstract

The essay experiments with a process of recollection that moves associatively among the discarded material remains of a Montana homestead. Fragmentary objects and documents are brought into focus through their juxtaposition with each other, in an attempted recuperation of obsolete networks of use and affinity. A thread of oral history offers complement and counterpoint to the material histories. Shuttling between close description and critical reflection, the essay engages imaginatively with the cultural remembrance of private and public life in Depression-era Montana.