Understanding Your Neighbor: An Analysis of Mixed-Use Immigrant Households in Nineteenth Century Port Richmond

Carolyn J. Horlacher; Samuel A Pickard

Understanding Your Neighbor: An Analysis of Mixed-Use Immigrant Households in Nineteenth Century Port Richmond

Author(s): Carolyn J. Horlacher; Samuel A Pickard

Year: 2020

Summary

This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Millions of Europeans left their homes during the closing decades of the nineteenth and dawn of the twentieth centuries, seeking new lives and opportunities in the United States. Many clustered in specific, less desirable neighborhoods of American cities drawn by cheap housing, available jobs, and proximity to their ethnic and religious kin. One such immigrant-heavy neighborhood was the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, which was dominated by the Reading Railroad’s expansive tidewater anthracite coal terminal. New historical and archaeological evidence uncovered through the I-95/Girard Avenue Interchange Project has shed light on the lives of Port Richmond’s residents, long ignored by published histories and archaeological investigations. By examining the material recovered from deposits that are similar temporally and economically but attributed to different immigrant populations, AECOM archaeologists can start to develop an understanding of what the various ethnic and religious communities of Port Richmond shared, and what made them distinct.

Cite this Record

Understanding Your Neighbor: An Analysis of Mixed-Use Immigrant Households in Nineteenth Century Port Richmond. Carolyn J. Horlacher, Samuel A Pickard. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457301)