Industrializing Cities

Manchester 1843: archetype industrial city

The Growth of Urban Britain

In 1801, London was the only city in the British Isles to have more than 100,000 residents.

By 1911, there were 36 such cities

In 1851 city dwellers comprised 54 percent of the total population

By 1911 this had increased to 79 percent

This transition reflects dual influences on the population – the ‘push’ caused by growing rural poverty and the ‘pull’ of new urban opportunities

Salford by L S Lowry

Megacities (10 million+ inhabitants) 2015

Overcrowding in urban structures revealed by Census returns from 1801

Not unusual to have 6-12 members of a family living and sleeping in the same room

Poverty and Squalor

Blue Gate Fields, 1872. From London: A Pilgrimage by Blanchard Jerrold

and Gustave Doré.

Urban archaeologies

Lots of urban archaeology in Britain, from late 1940s, but tended to remove modern ‘overburden’ to reveal medieval or Roman remains

The Temple of Mithras, Walbrook is a Roman temple whose ruins were discovered in Walbrook, a street in the City of London, during rebuilding work in 1954

USA – Urban archaeology took off in 1980s

Roy Dickens (ed) (1982) Archaeology of Urban AmericaAcademic Press

Industrialization, bottle consumption, settlement patterns,Public interpretation

Edward Staski (ed) 1987 Living in Cities: Current Research in Urban Archaeology . SHA Special Publication

New York, Sacramento, Phoenix, Boston, sites explored from colonial period to early 20th century

US urban archaeologies

- confronted social and spatial complexity

- appreciated plurality and rapid change in urban life

- analyzed large and complex assemblages from 19th and 20th century sites

New York : Five Points

Five Points in 1827 as depicted in Valentine's Manual, 1855

By the 1820s the expanding work force in Manhattan had created a severe housing shortage. The city began to expand northward with landowners subdividing their houses into rental units

New York : Five Points

Describing a visit in 1842, Charles Dickens wrote:

"This is the place: these narrow ways diverging to the right and left, and reeking every where with dirt and filth. ...The coarse and bloated faces at the doors have counterparts at home and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of these pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of grunting?"

Foley Square Courthouse, erected over part of the old Five Points by the U.S. General Services Administration

New York : Five Points

• Through the study of the artefacts recovered in 1991, the daily lives of the people who lived at Five Points became visible.

• A team of 17 archaeologists, conservators, and historians analyzed the 850,000 artefacts recovered from the Foley Square courthouse block.

• A rich story has emerged centred on the working-class residents of Five Points, the neighbourhood's reputation as New York's most notorious slum, and its overcrowded tenement neighbourhood teeming with newly arrived immigrants

Rebecca Yamin (left) of John Milner Associates

Overview of 1991 archaeological excavation showing foundations and features on lots 6 and 7 - 472 and 474 Pearl Street

Backyard features (abandoned privy shafts, cisterns, wells) are often the focus of urban archaeology.

A wealth of information can be derived from people's rubbish—information about their private lives, their personal choices, and even their political allegiances.

Feature O

By mid-century Irish and German immigrants crowded into the tenements and apartments along Pearl and Baxter Streets.

Feature O, a stone-lined privy, contained trash belonging to the Irish tenants at 474 Pearl Street

Five Points – New York

Father Matthew ‘Temperance Cup’

Transfer-printed ceramicsStaffordshire patterns, 1830-

1867

Matching White Granite tea set, made in England, 1840-1860

Yellow ware mug; transfer-printed child's cup from the ‘Games and Pastimes’ series, England, c. 1820; Luster ware creamer;

Yellow ware mug

"Old blue" pitcher with Lafayette contemplating the tomb of Franklin, French series, Staffordshire, 1824-1835

The skeletal remains of a Capuchin monkey recovered from Feature H may have belonged to one of the Italian organ grinders who lived at 14 Baxter Street.

The Rocks, Sydney

Grace Karskens

More than 750,000 items and 30 buildings were excavated at the dig site, between Cumberland and Gloucester Streets, by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority

Former convict and butcher George Cribb leased a site for his house and slaughter yard from 1809 in what became known as Cribbs Lane He’d been sentenced to 14 years imprisonment in Australia for being in possession of forged bank notes.

. A still was also found during the dig in 1994. At a time when rum and other spirits were considered a de facto currency, such an illegal still could have been considered a sort of money making machine.

The Rocks, Sydney: Cribb’s Yard

The Rocks, Sydney

Other stories from the site include that of George Legg and Anne Armsden (their home was known as the arm and leg house).

In 1805 George went fishing and disappeared. A shark was found with his hand inside it and a month later Cadigal (aboriginal) people visited Anne to tell her the rest of the body had been found

Alan Mayne and Tim Murray (eds) The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland. Cambridge University Press 2001

West Oakland, California

The I-880 Cypress Freeway Replacement

A project by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) District 4, involved the reconstruction of a 3.1-mile section of freeway in Oakland and Emeryville,

Caltrans contracted with the Anthropological Studies Center at Sonoma State University (ASC) to examine the area of potential effects (APE).

The Cypress Archaeology Project database is unprecedented in the West. Over 120 discrete artifact assemblages were recovered and associated with specific households.

A wide variety of groups is represented, from unskilled working-class households to upper-middle-class families, immigrants from numerous countries, and native-born whites and African Americans.

Putting the "There" There: Historical Archaeologies of West Oakland

http://www.sonoma.edu/asc/cypress/finalreport/

Mary and Adrian Praetzellis

The I-880 Cypress Freeway Replacement

The I-880 Cypress Freeway Replacement

Report focuses on the people of the neighbourhood, with essays on: - the archaeology of gender;- the material culture of the “aristocracy of labor”; - the Overseas Chinese and laundry work; - the archaeology and landscape of lodging; - the archaeology and 150-year history of African Americans in West Oakland

Hungate, York

www.dighungate.com/