Community Archaeology at a Neighborhood Scale in Boston's Chinatown

Summary

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

A significant Chinese immigrant wave began in Boston during the 1870’s. Throughout the next decade, a centralized Chinese community began to form downtown on Harrison, Essex, and Beach Avenues. This neighborhood allowed residents to converge on Sundays, meet with friends, buy food and supplies, and seek solace through gambling and opium. Recently, Boston’s Chinatown residents requested an archaeological survey at 6 Hudson Street. Since construction in 1838, the property was occupied by English, Irish, and then Syrian immigrants. In the 1920's, as Chinatown expanded South, Chinese-American Ruby Foo purchased the land and turned it into one of the most successful Chinese restaurants in Boston. The 2019 collaborative, community-based, public, archaeological survey at 6 Hudson Street, in conjunction with density analysis of Chinese businesses from 1880 to 1922, provides information on the lives of the Chinese immigrants on the East coast that has previously been understudied in Chinese Diaspora archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• 2020 SHA Poster Submissions

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 377