Archaeology, Advertising, and Curing Your Ails

Allison K Butchko

Archaeology, Advertising, and Curing Your Ails

Year: 2020

Summary

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

The idea of archaeology and advertising does not typically go in hand in hand, but advertisements influence our purchases today as much as they did back in the 19th century. Using the archaeological record as a starting point we will explore medicine bottles from the Gunnar’s Run South site located in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA. This site was once mainly row homes survived only by their wells and privies. The bottles excavated here share knowledge of the daily practices of the inhabitants, and by using advertisements from the period we can take a deeper look into not only the products themselves, but the buying habits of the residents. This presentation will explore several different medicine bottles found at the Gunnar’s Run South site, and their representing advertisements from the historical record to give a more detailed account of the daily lives of the residents in the 19th century.