Public/Private Consumption in the Performance of Respectability and Gentility at 71 Joy Street, Boston, MA.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

71 Joy Street was home to several free Black families in the mid-late nineteenth century and working-class white tenants through the early twentieth century. Evidence of their daily lives and identity performances was discovered in the brick-lined privy sealed after approximately 75 years of continuous use. The objects speak to the public and private dimensions of urban life in Beacon Hill: the heart of Boston’s free Black community until the turn of the twentieth century. The ability of the residents to deploy consumer goods in performances of gender, class, and racial identities is visible in patterns observed in the artifact assemblage. Strategies for maintaining a sanitary environment and healthy lifestyle, embedded in prevailing scientific theories of disease transmission, are also considered key elements in the performance of refined gentility. Such performances were instrumental in the community-wide struggle for equality led by resident activists, including individuals associated with 71 Joy Street.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology