Sanctified Spaces and Tableware: New Insights from Brook Farm Historic Site, a 19th to 20th Century Lutheran Orphanage in West Roxbury, Massachusetts

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper discusses the analysis of ceramic tableware from the Martin Luther Orphans’ Home (1871-1945) in West Roxbury, Massachusetts to assess the ways the “orphan-parents” who ran the institution used material culture as tools of domestic and religious instruction. By isolating a series of intact deposits on contexts previously thought disturbed, and comparing the assemblage to a contemporary institution, the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls (1859-1941), this research reveals the symbolic narratives encoded into the daily rituals of the orphanage. Analysis of the ceramics sheds light on how the institution emulated specifics of a middle-class domestic experience, reflecting 19th-century notions of respectability and Christian moral values. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of religious and domestic practices within a late-Victorian institution through detailed analysis of the site's ceramic assemblage.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow