The Temple On The Hill: Reviving the Patapsco Female Institute

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Boxed but not Forgotten Redux or: The Importance and Usefulness of Exploring Old or Forgotten Collections" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Patapsco Female Institute (18HO143) in Ellicott City, Maryland, once stood as a beacon for female education throughout the nineteenth century. By the late 1960s, the “temple on the Hill” had fallen into complete ruin, and Howard County purchased the property in the hopes of stabilizing the ruins for public interpretation. Prior to stabilization, archaeological investigations were conducted to identify any significant features associated with the school’s Golden Era.

For the past twenty years, collections from the school have been neglected, sitting in boxes, waiting to be interpreted. Since 2017, the Howard County Archaeology Program has begun the process of properly cataloguing and curating these collections, as well as planning on rebooting the public archaeology program at the ruins for the 250th anniversary of the founding of Ellicott City.   This paper presents how a public archaeology program can successfully revive and find usefulness in forgotten collections.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Boxed but not Forgotten Redux or: The Importance and Usefulness of Exploring Old or Forgotten Collections   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology