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Kimberley Connor
Assistant Teaching Professor (Collections Management)
Office:
Ewell 208
Email:
kgconnor@wm.edu
Phone:
757-221-3013
Areas of Specialization :
Legacy Collections; Historical Archaeology; Food History; 19th Century, Immigration; Institutions; Material Culture Analysis; Australia; British Empire
Background
I am a historical archaeologist and food historian interested in the social roles of food among immigrants in the 19th century. I combine archival and archaeological evidence to study the different types of foods that people in the past ate, the ways that they cooked and dined, and how this created and reflected social practices.
My first project was a multi-material project of legacy collections from the Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney, Australia. Between 1848 and 1887, the Barracks housed two female institutions: the Female Immigration Depot for unmarried immigrant women, and the Destitute Asylum for women unable to care for themselves in society. By tacking between the documentary and material evidence, this work revealed that the diet of the women was much more varied than previously known with the women supplementing their rations with condiments, fresh fruit, nuts, and shellfish. More recently, I have been a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Market Street Chinatown Archaeology Project, managing the Historical Archaeology Lab and reanalyzing the glass containers and tablewares.
I manage the Department of Anthropology's ethnographic and archaeological collections and students who are interested in conducting research on the collections or undertaking collections-based internships are encouraged to contact me.
Education
PhD, Anthropology with a Minor in History, Stanford University (2023)
BA (Hons) in Archaeology, University of Sydney (2017)
BA (Langs) in French and Archaeology, University of Sydney (2016)
Selected Publications
Connor, K.G. 2025. Eating in colonial institutions: desiccated plant remains from nineteenth-century Sydney. Antiquity 99: 553–69. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.215.
Connor, K.G. 2022. Seeking Margaret Baker: Identifying the Author of Three Manuscript Receipt Books. ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830 12. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol12/iss1/2. https://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.12.1.1252.
Connor, K.G. 2021. ‘To make the emigrant a better colonist’: transforming women in the Female Immigration Depot, Hyde Park Barracks. World Archaeology 53. Routledge: 451–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2022.2037454.