Welcome to the projects page!
Here is where you’ll find links to all our current, completed, and back burner projects, as well as those thar have been permanently or indefinitely.
The current primary focus of Anthrospin is a book entitled Lost & Foundry: Amos Chafee Barstow and Rhode Island’s Stove Industry. It roughly traces the life of Amos Barstow while establishing the cultural world into which he was born, as well as the changes in the city of Providence as he developed his life’s work in the Barstow Stove Company.
Much of this project is in scattered notes in notebooks, my computer, my Barstow focused Facebook group, my google docs account, and my external hard drive. An outline of the foundry and link to the Facebook group on the Barstow Stove Company page.
If you’ve followed Anthrospin for any length of time, you know that one of the most complex and ambitious projects we have undertaken is Scrimshaw, which explores the origins of industrial whaling and it’s impact on the world through expansion of westernization, the displacement of indigenous peoples, and the collapse of marine ecosystems.
Due to restrictions on collections research during the initial surges of COVID, Scrimshaw was put on hold and for a while considered in post-production with editing work pending. But since life works as it does and other projects took center stage during the height of the pandemic. We will return to production mid-summer, 2023, with trips to Nantucket, Mystic Seaport, and the Mattapoisett Historical Society in the planning stages, this project will, at long last, be in the cutting stages by late fall of 2023.
With major funding avenues opening up that will allow Everyday Anthropology to focus on its mission, there aren’t any other major projects in the works at present. The programming developed over the last six years will be put back into rotation to work towards getting Anthrospin funded to the point of having paid staff who can focus on the various aspects of non-profit administration so that we can continue to produce awesome programming.
In the coming weeks and months, large-scale restructuring of our website, Facebook page, newsletter, Patreon, and the development of a focused ad-campaign to work towards simply being an operating nonprofit with at least one full-time employee, one part-time employee, and a rotating cast of paid interns and volunteers.