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Date: | Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:11:42 -0400 |
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A very common means of acquiring secondhand ceramics and other household goods was at estate sales. The estate sales in Kentucky even list who bought what. The ceramic and glass tableware I excavated at a post-Civil War urban African American house site in Lexington was in many cases clearly older than the initiation date of the household. The couple who settled the site were freed slaves and this was the home they established very soon after their emancipation. Documentary evidence suggested that some of the tableware and decorative items were probably given to the woman of the household by an employer (she was a cook for a family at various times) but she would have had ample opportunity to acquire dishes and other household items from local estate sales.
Nancy O'Malley
Assistant Director
William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology and
Office of State Archaeology
1020A Export Street
University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky 40506
Ph. 859-257-1944
FAX: 859-323-1968
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From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lyle E. Browning [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 7:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Second-Hand Shops in the 18th & 19th Centuries
On our site today, discussions got around to pottery distribution in
the 18th & 19th century and secondary markets. The phenomenon of hand-
me-downs from plantation owner to overseer to slave is documented. But
in an urban environment, was there a mechanism for distribution of
wares "not of the latest fashion" to secondary markets and/or
distributees in any formal manner or was it an ad hoc arrangement.
And, has anyone looked at the archaeological record to show same, if
it exists? Did what we now call second-hand shops exist except as 20th
century inventions? How common were the Dickensian Old Curiosity Shops
as mechanisms for redistribution of goods for the middle/lower classes
outside major metro areas?
Thanks in advance,
Lyle Browning, RPA
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