Immigration Service Records and the Archaeology of Chinatown, The Dalles, Oregon
Author(s): Rick McClure
Year: 2015
Summary
As a key transportation hub and supply center on the Columbia River during the 19th century, the city of The Dalles, Oregon attracted significant numbers of overseas Chinese workers and merchants. By the 1880s a distinct "Chinatown" district had emerged. Enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act included close monitoring of the population by Federal agents. Records of the Immigration Service housed at the Seattle branch of the National Archives include the case files for many community residents. These records provide remarkable context to the archaeology of site 45WS453, a mercantile and residential block at the center of the Chinatown community. Content pertaining to kinship and social organization, community structure, residential patterns1880, mercantile practices, and social and business interactions between Chinese and non-Chinese all have a direct bearing on the interpretation of the artifact assemblage recovered during recent archaeological excavations.
Cite this Record
Immigration Service Records and the Archaeology of Chinatown, The Dalles, Oregon. Rick McClure. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Seattle, Washington. 2015 ( tDAR id: 433896)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Archival Research
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Oregon
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Overseas Chinese
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
AD 1880 - 1930
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 531