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Drake Patten

Contact Drake at: drake@thesteelyard.org
Drake Patten is a graduate in History and Material Culture from Skidmore College and holds advanced degrees from the University of Durham, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Virginia in Medieval Archaeology, American History and Cultural Anthropology respectively. Drake served as Executive Director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RICH) from 1999-2004. Prior to joining RICH as a Program Officer in 1998, she directed a public archaeology program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville that engaged both the university and the local community in an exploration of race, class, and gender of the 19th and 20th century south. A professional archaeologist for 13 years, Drake has been involved with museums and public history since 1983. She has written and lectured on the archaeology of race, the role of fiction in archaeological research, American material culture, nineteenth century ceramics, and well as on post-colonial literature and nationalism. Drake has also taught applied archaeology on the elementary school through college levels. She has worked as an archaeological curator and educator at a number of national historic sites including Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Historic Shadwell, and Jefferson's Poplar Forest. Until 1999, Drake was the principal of Artifactory, an archaeological contract and research firm, and she remains president and artistic director of Draconian Measures, an interior design company. Prior to joing the Steel Yard, Drake spent 18 months reorganizing the management of the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, New York.