Food Establishments and the Role Women Played in Nineteenth-Century Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This project studies food establishments that were commercially registered between 1897 and 1899 and the role that women played as business owners in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. I analyzed primary sources, which included state-issued permits for local merchants, as well as diverse secondary sources to gain a clearer scope of the socioeconomic dynamics of late nineteenth-century Old San Juan. Commercial registries showed that men, women, and collectives held propriety of some of these locales. This project found women made up 10% of the total registered business owners, and also identified 37 food establishments in Old San Juan during this period. Therefore, this project concluded that women were active participants in the city’s commercial activity, while the review of primary sources such as commercial registries is reaffirmed as a fundamental piece in the understanding of the socioeconomy in Puerto Rico. By using archival evidence, I challenge long-standing historical archaeology narratives about the traditional roles assigned to women by demonstrating that they played active roles in Old San Juan’s socioeconomic activities during the nineteenth century beyond domestic roles.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37226.0