Pots and Creole Politics: Preliminary Analysis of an Urban, Late-Nineteenth Century Kiln Site in New Orleans

Summary

In winter of 2008-09, scheduled demolition of Lafitte Housing Project in New Orleans prompted Section 106 Archaeological Data Recovery, conducted by Earth Search, Inc. During excavations, the presence of of kiln furniture, hand-manipulated clay, and fragments of irregular vessels at City Square 281 (16OR308) suggested that it was a late-nineteenth century kiln site. Research confirms that Lucien Gex, son of a French-born artist, advertised crockery there at 273 Carondelet Walk in 1891; in 1885 Gex had been superintendent at an unsuccessful Limoges Porcelain factory owned by Bertrand Saloy, a wealthy French-born immigrant and prominent figure in creole circles. By 1891, Saloy had passed away, as had the creole influence of the antebellum era, leaving Gex at 273 Carondelet Walk with the remnants of both potteries in an Americanized city. This paper discusses the kiln assemblage and the kiln's ultimate closure in context of the Creole/American political divide of  nineteenth-century New Orleans. 

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Orleans Archaeology at the Tricentennial   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 827