'Of the house of Israel in America': The archeology of Judaism, slavery, and assimilation on the Arkansas frontier

This thesis is an archeological assessment of the date and function of an outbuilding serving the home of the family of Abraham Block, the first documented Jewish immigrant to the state of Arkansas. The archeology of this outbuilding also has implications about the manner in which Southern Judaism manifests on the frontier in the Arkansas town of Washington in the antebellum period of the nineteenth century. As a result of these implications, a history of family and the town Washington, Arkansas are given to contextualize the findings of the archeological investigations. Directions for further studies of the archeology of frontier Judaism are also discussed.