Alexander Keim, Dandies Figurine Recovered from 27-29 Endicott

Have you ever wondered what historical archaeologists would make of you, two-hundred years from now, should they be given the entire contents of your trash can? That is exactly what happened with two 19th-century privy deposits found during archaeological excavations in Boston’s North End neighborhood. Few things excite archaeologists more than an intact, undisturbed privy deposit because of the extraordinary amount of information that can be gleaned about one specific moment, in one specific place.

While the primary function of a privy was, as you can probably guess, to answer the calls of nature – they also often acted as dumping receptacles for household trash. This was particularly true during changes of ownership at a property, where disposal of household refuse into a six-foot deep privy shaft in the backyard was commonplace. It is easy to distinguish “clearing-out” moments like this within the archaeological strata of a privy, since they usually show up as a large concentration of household goods within a small area, as opposed to household items dispersed amongst many other layers of fill (mixed in with a good amount of soil and human waste).

Since trash disposal was a more localized process in years-gone-by, historical archaeologists are able to say with some certainty that these North End privies would have been used exclusively by the people living there. By looking into someone’s privy, you can figure out what they wore, what sort of vessels they drank from, and even what they ate. By pairing archaeological analysis with documentary evidence showing what jobs these people had, their ages, sex, and socio-economic status, we can begin to make broad generalizations about what “life was like” while still keeping the narrative enjoyably intimate.

Even more importantly for historians, this kind of archaeological find can often clarify muddy bits of the past. Contemporary accounts by upper and middle-class Bostonians describe the entirety of the North End as a “slum,” an unsanitary morass of overcrowded tenements, often occupied by immigrants, and rife with immoral behavior. The finds within these privies, as detailed in Alexander Keim’s work, Boston Inside Out: A Brothel, a Boardinghouse, and the Construction of the 19th-century North End’s Urban Landscape through Embodied Practice, suggest something else, and in doing so help to present a picture of societal segments that often are either ignored by the record or misunderstood.

For the Paul Revere House, the exciting part of this archaeological endeavor is that one of the privies was used by the residents of 19-21 North Square! The privy in question did not belong to our eponymous hero, but rather to subsequent owners of the property in the late 19th century. Lydia Loring owned 19-21 North Square from 1833-1866, running a boarding house, until she sold the property to Catherine Wilkie in 1867. Wilkie, along with her husband James, took over the boarding house business and likely expanded part of the first floor into a saloon. As housekeeper, Mrs. Wilkie would have been responsible for maintaining the values of a family home and her mostly-male, working-class tenants could have expected a fixed number of meals per day as well as domestic services like laundry. The 1867 ownership transfer was reconfirmed by a large and concentrated deposit of household goods within one archaeological strata of the privy, indicating a household “clean-out”.

Finds from the 19-21 North Square privy portray men who strove to show their working-class identity by the things they wore and the accessories they used. Often, this visual identity is revealed by objects that mimic a middle-class form but have additional decorative detailing, typical of a working-class material culture that valued an element of flash in adornment. A good example of this is the variety of buttons found in the North Square privy – de facto functional items that have an added bit of flair. This includes white prosser ceramic buttons that, when polished, would have been quite shiny, and two black glass buttons decorated with a star motif.

Even without the accompanying documentary evidence, archaeologists would be able to tell that a certain type of man likely boarded at this house. While tobacco-use flourished in all classes in 19th-century Boston, smoking the type of disposable clay pipes found in the North Square privy was most typical of the working classes. Interestingly, several of the 28 pipes found were manufactured in Scotland, where James Wilkie was from. Further, large numbers of clamshells, mineral and soda bottles give a hint at aspects of foodways for the period.

Finally, no outfit was complete without attention to hair. A small, pearlware ointment jar with a label that read “Pommade Fine/L. T. Piver/Rue St. Martin No 103/Paris/ and 106 Regent Street London” was found in the privy. Pomade, a waxy hair product, would have created the well-oiled and sleek look favored by the type of man who lived at a house like the Wilkies’. He might have spent long days working in and around the waterfront, but he valued the effort of keeping a fresh appearance nonetheless.

The other site in question, though still technically working-class, was of an entirely different nature. Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that 27-29 Endicott Street functioned as a brothel and a boarding house during the time in question, roughly 1850-1880. Initially identified and excavated as a part of the Big Dig, the site actually post-dated the 1840 cutoff date for significance given by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and did not qualify for official archaeological investigation. Instead, a team of archaeologists volunteered to save the material on their own time, offering us a critical view at one oft-misunderstood institution of working-class life in 19th-century Boston: the parlor house.

Archaeologists were able to identify 27-29 Endicott Street as a one-time brothel because of a large and concentrated quantity of vaginal syringes, suggesting a clean-out and operational transition to a boarding house in 1867. The brothel at 27-29 Endicott Street was probably of the parlor house variety – a place where clients were entertained with food and alcohol before retreating to a room upstairs for a liaison with a sex worker in exchange for money. Often, this room was rented by the sex worker from the Madame.

Parlor houses mimicked middle-class conventions, creating a space where average, middle-class clients could seek respite from daily life. One of the archaeological elements identifying 27-29 Endicott Street as the parlor house variety with its aspirational middle-class ambience, is the profusion of bric-a-brac found in the privy. Bric-a-brac is defined as inexpensive domestic decoration, often mass-produced. One particularly poignant piece found in the privy of 27-29 Endicott Street is a colorful ceramic figurine of a male and female (pictured above). Inclusion of these types of décor choices would have marked the occupants as participating in a universal, Victorian genteel culture.

Taking this enjoyable and voyeuristic peek at how people in the North End actually lived during the second half of the 19th century allows us to twist the existing narrative of this neighborhood, which was all too often deemed a “slum.” Instead, archaeological evidence reveals residents who reinforced their own working-class identity, typified by highly decorated buttons and bric-a-brac, that may have been “other” to the Brahmins of Back Bay but was by no means “slum.” Lucky for us, and because of the tireless work of archaeologists, all of this 200-year old “trash” provides material culture evidence that allows us to make broad socio-economic pronouncements about class culture in the North End, what might otherwise have been a black hole in history.

Alexandra Powell is a Program Assistant at the Paul Revere House