Women and Children in the Evanston Chinatown

Summary

In the later part of the nineteenth century, Chinese communities in the northern Rocky Mountains and Plains could be characterized by one basic generalization: few Chinese women and children lived in these communities. Alberta, Canada, in 1891, had one Chinese woman living in the Province and by 1901, when the next census was taken; she had moved away (Alberta Census 1891, 1901). More typical of the interior west were places like Silver Bow County, Montana, or Rock Springs, Wyoming, where one or more women lived amidst a predominately male population (U.S. Census, Montana and Wyoming, 1880). In Rock Springs, for example, there were 335 Chinese men in 1880 and only one woman.1 Having given these generalizations, there are some exceptions. Specifically, in the 1800s, in places like Helena, Montana and, Evanston, Wyoming, Chinese families and women made up at least a small portion of the population. There are three generalizations that can be made about Chinese in Wyoming during the second half of the nineteenth century. First, Chinese were a distinct minority in Wyoming. Second, the ratio of Chinese women to men was even less than the male to female ratio in most frontier communities in Wyoming. Third, very few Chinese children lived in Wyoming. In this paper we will focus on the Chinese women who lived in Evanston, Wyoming from 1869 to 1900. We will look briefly at the historical record, then at material cultural remains that distinguish women’s spaces from male spaces at the Evanston Chinatown. Specifically, we will look at jewelry pieces found in excavation and then show that in at least one case in the area excavated at the Evanston Chinatown one Chinese woman and children lived within a space belonging to a high-status family.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Wyoming Archaeologist 2004

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Contact(s): Marcia Peterson

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