Exploring the Evolving Urban Landscapes of Boston and Salem

Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, were two of the most high-profile port cities along the eastern seaboard during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Their commercial and political prominence was a catalyst for continual ethnic, economic, and landscape change, the evidence of which has been largely erased from the visible landscape. The papers in this session, which include the results of excavations at the Paul Revere House, the Boston African American Historical Site, and ‘The Big Dig’ in Boston, as well the Philips House in Salem, explore how the historical dynamism of both cities survives buried in the archeological record, often in excellent states of preservation. From ceramic, architectural, and ‘intimate effects’ assemblages recovered from discrete privy contexts to complex stratigraphic and feature sequences, these sites speak to evolving ideas about property organization, privacy, and personal choice rooted in the complex interplay of gender, ethnic, and racial identification.