A Comparative Analysis of Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Ceramics in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Summary

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

This poster examines the value of ceramic analysis as a tool for understanding the relative socioeconomic statuses of the residents of the “Janitor’s House” at Gettysburg College. In summer 2022, we cataloged and recorded ceramic shreds excavated at the Janitor’s House in fall 2021. This collection was then compared with two local houses thought to be occupied at roughly the same time: the Riggs and Monroe-Diggs Houses. The Riggs house, while owned by a different family, was occupied by Alexander Riggs and his family starting in 1860 and was located on the edges of town; while the Riggs were white Americans, their house was used by Confederates during the war like the Janitor’s House. The Monroe-Diggs house was a residence in Gettysburg built in the early nineteenth century which was primarily owned by African Americans—Clara Diggs, Elizabeth Butler, and Richard Monroe—until its demolition in the mid-twentieth century; most of the artifacts found in this extensive archaeological excavation can be traced back to these families. This poster presents the results of our comparative analysis and provides some interpretations of the relative wealth and statues of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Gettysburg College janitors based on their ceramics.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37395.0