COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 23 Barrett drew historic conclusions from a contemporary concept. Her interest in the family led to an appreciation of the family’s women, home and hearth practices—through their lens—along with those “who don’t show up on muster lists for the war and battles. It was really a project to find out more about this family.” The Huddlestons were an ambitious and “upwardly mobile family” and their story illustrates their personal rise and fall. Barrett says connecting interdisciplinary dots led to stories of valor, early Colonial American settlements, the transatlantic impacts as well as their family tree’s descendants, which connect to modern times. “As for doing the research, I learned there is so much more to dig into…to really put these two important pieces together in forming my analysis and narrative. It was a huge opportunity to get the experience overseas in all those rooms with old, amazing documents, and I take the responsibility of doing this work very seriously,” Barrett says. Another outcome of Barrett’s research was understanding the 17th century as a period of “blossoming of the middle class,” which began to shift the dynamic cultural and economic weight of the aristocracy and royals toward commoners. She says the experiences traveling, researching and writing about the Huddleston family have been two-fold, and the “boots on the ground” opportunity was a first-hand way to learn more deeply about their lives. “It is one thing to think about wills and inventories from the middle of the 1600s, it is quite another thing to hold the brittle paper and parchment covered in iron-gall ink in my own hand,” Barrett says. ● Barrett’s core research focuses on 1600–1750, though the broader “long 18th century” extends into the American Colonial era. Her work examines how land ownership and wealth connected to political power, and how significant debt affected a family’s influence, social standing, and welfare. “Equally relevant with this family and this period is the aspect of war. My angle is a women’s side of war,” Barrett says. In mining the long-ago past, Barrett discovered aspects of political loyalty, ancestry, war and American Colonial expansion were grounded in the lived experiences and ideal type representations of women. Barrett considered ideal type-representations of women and the household during the English Stuart Period (1603–1714) and Age of Enlightenment, dominated by England’s Hanoverian kings (1714–1910) including King George III who reigned during the American War for Independence. Great Britain was “becoming multi-cultural” during this period and their ideas of governance are absolute. “Before the war Parliament certainly existed, but times were changing, and certainly not everyone was always together for the king,” she says. The Huddlestons’ loyalty to the crown eventually cost them their heritage forests and estates to deal with debts incurred during the English Civil War, Barrett adds. Fierce Royalists, the Huddlestons’ abundance and declining standing and fortunes became a cautionary tale. Barrett investigated Huddleston estate records, wills, deeds and inventories, which became a daily record of their wealth and losses—especially war casualties the family sustained. A mother and U.S. military veteran, Barrett was “trained for war and to mobilize” two personal aspects which brought a deeper level to her work. “There were nine brothers who were Royalists in the English Civil War. Sources suggest many of them died in the war—as a mother that is unimaginable,” she says. One military strategy of the time was damaging, or “slighting,” a castle so it could not be defended again. This happened to the Huddleston family, who lost everything because of their political affiliations, Barrett explains. In making connections between the modern concept of “total war, which disregards traditional lines between combatants and civilians, and this war, seemingly one on the land and people,” BRIDGEMAN IMAGES, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO “The North-East View of Millum Castle, in the County of Cumberland” by: Samuel Buck (above). The castle was a moated manor house owned by John Huddleston. King George III (top).
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