To all with a privy interest,

        Following up on Megan's comments, from 1989 through '91 I excavated
a c. 1760 to 1989 farmstead in Topsham, Maine, for a DOT project.  Three
privies were found, and one was full of complete (but broken) ceramics.  In
that privy we found 5 redware vessels, 12 creamware, and 17 pearlware
pieces, all complete. We found only one glass bottle and a few other datable
pieces, but not much.  The family was fairly well-to-do.  In 1860 the eldest
son brought his new bride home to live and three years later his mother
died.  It would seem the bride either cleaned out the kitchen when she moved
in or when the mother died, and dumped what she didn't want in the privy.
The undecorated creamware could represent four sets, while the transfer
printed pearlware represented ten different sets.  So the wife appears to
have been throwing out odd pieces as opposed to complete sets.

        A detailed listing/analysis of the ceramics was included in the
report.  It was published in "The Maine Archaeological Society Bulletin",
Vol. 33:1 Spring 1993.

Regards, Lee Cranmer
Maine Historic Preservation Commission

-----Original Message-----
From: Ron May [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 2:47 AM
To: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Cc: Cranmer, Leon
Subject: Re: Privies


In a message dated 2/26/01 4:52:33 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< I agree... isn't there a hypothesis that whole sets of dishes, etc. found
 their way down privies when the female head of household changed? (i.e.
 from first wife to second, or from mother to bride)? Is this in Diane
 diZerega Wall's "The Archaeology of Gender", or am I thinking of another
 source? >>

Megan,

Now that one escaped me, but I also heard that masses of shirt buttons meant
the men never salvaged buttons because they did not make new shirts. Hence,
the hypothesis that masses of buttons in privies and dumps means male gender
occupation. This concept has been kicking around for at least 20 years, but
I
do not know a source to cite or data to support it. On the other had, I did
inherit my grandma's button jar and think there is merit to the idea.

Wow, talk about spite!  But, my folks probably would never had dumped sets
of
tableware because until the 1920s they could not afford them. A woman would
have really had to be making a statement for that kind of behavior. Then
again, people of the upper gentry would have had the money for that kind of
fashion turnover. Maybe class distinctions are the key to the tableware
changes?

Ron May