serial: #3546
Marion Post Wolcott, JITTERBUGGING IN JUKE JOINT, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE (1939) courtesy of Library of Congress [LC-USF34-052589]. |
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When people participate in rituals—whether religious or secular—they are attempting to create order and meaning in their lives. A ritual can be defined as an act, or series of acts, that a person performs consistently and repeatedly, usually structured by a set of specified or tacit rules. We take part in rituals all the time, whether by taking a daily shower, washing the dishes, playing sports, or participating in a religious service. The artifacts that accompany and enable these rituals provide important insight into the particular beliefs of the social groups and individuals that use them. For example, a nineteenth-century woman’s calling card illuminates the upper-class female tradition of “visiting.” The honorary titles women had printed on the cards help us interpret the elaborate codes that publicly identified women’s marital and social status at that time. To take a more mundane example, the instruction booklet for a twenty first century espresso machine reveals the extent to which “coffee house culture” has been domesticated and privatized in our own era, and how certain types of coffee drinks have come to be equated with social class.
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