Linebaugh, Donald: “‘All the Annoyances and Inconveniences of the Country’: Environmental Factors in the Development of Outbuildings in the Colonial Chesapeake,” The Winterthur Portfolio (Vol. 29, No. 1) Spring 1994.
Most scholarship on the physical makeup of Chesapeake plantations has focused on the role of outbuildings in illustrating the level of status of the elite landowner; the outbuildings created a “little village” setting with the landowner located at the center of all activity. Linebaugh writes that, on the contrary, evidence indicates the need for these outbuildings had more to do with the natural environment than with status symbols. By looking at archaeological evidence, studying primary resources, and examining parallels in English examples, the article focuses on how kitchens were moved to separate buildings to keep the heat and bad smells away from the main house so that it would be as cool and fresh-smelling as possible for the family and their guests. Separate kitchens were not found in New England colonies as often as they were in southern ones because of the differences in temperature. Similarly, dairies and smoke or meat houses attracted bad smells along with vermin, so it was more efficient to have them situated at a distance from the living quarters. Linebaugh supports this research with an enormous amount of material, including physical descriptions of such buildings, contemporary quotes, diagrams, and charts. [C. Thomas]