My research involves examining both the historical record and material culture. I have completed over 700 architectural and anthropological surveys of slave houses in the United States. In addition to fieldwork, I have conducted extensive research and detailed analyses of the materials in the three largest collections of documented slave architecture in America: The Slave Narratives collected by the Work Progress Administration in the 1930s, the architectural surveys completed by the Historic American Buildings Survey since 1933, and the research and documentation carried out by the Architectural Research Department at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation since 1980. Having seen firsthand hundreds of slave houses, as well as study them from an interdisciplinary perspective, I am able to offer an exclusive perspective about the structures and inhabitants of slave houses.
