The Dumbwaiter in America

"As a sociotechnical apparatus, the dumbwaiters at Monticello drew a physical 'color line' between Black bodies, Black minds, Black ears, and Black tongues and white bodies, white minds, white ears, and white tongues."

A multilayered history of the dumbwaiter at sites from Monticello to the Library of Congress, assessing material culture and domestic design's role in reflecting racial and gender inequalities in the founding of American architecture.

This article appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of the Avery Review, an online journal dedicated to thinking about books, buildings, and other architectural media housed at Columbia University.