An important archaeological goal of the Cypress Project was the recovery
of discrete collections of artifacts that could be associated with documented
households representing many of the cultural groups and social classes
that made up urban America (Figure 11.1.). This has been achieved on a
scale that surpassed our expectations: field archaeologists found over
100 such deposits—the largest archive of firmly linked and consistently
documented archaeological collections in the West. All of these materials
and their archaeological and historic contexts have been fully documented
in the Block Technical Report (BTR) series.
More than social-science data, these materials bring to life a neighborhood,
a community and communities of people who lived next door to each other,
passed on the street, worked and socialized together. When we compare
the artifacts from these homes, we are looking at collections that would
have been familiar to neighbors, groups of objects that functioned within
the same social milieu. We can see the contents of widow Margaret O’Connell’s
parlor and compare it, as she might have done, to that of her new neighbor,
21-year-old Mrs. Adeline Long. We can analyze difference and similarity,
and have some insight into what they may have meant to those who used
these things.
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