Julie and Fellow HistArchers:
There are a couple of pieces in Historical Archaeology on a cheese factory in central New York State dating from 1864-1890s. In those pieces are references to some primary literature on the cheese and butter industry. Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and the National Agricultural Library in College Park, Maryland, also have collections of primary materials (e.g., annual reports from the dairy boards of trade). Creameries tend to date from the 1880s through early 20th century, a period for which there is a great deal of published material from the industry and from state agricultural laboratories..
Cheese factory and creamery sites are occasionally encountered during archaeological surveys, particularly large-scale ones such as that undertaken at Fort Drum, Watertown, NY, by the Public Archeology Facility at Binghamton University. Unfortunately, these sites have not been subjected to intensive archaeological work anywhere in the United States or Canada, that I'm aware. References to such work, however, would be greatly appreciated.
Jim

James G. Gibb

Gibb Archaeological Consulting

2554 Carrollton Road

Annapolis, Maryland USA �� 21403

443.482.9593 (Land)  410.693.3847 (Cell)

www.gibbarchaeology.org �  www.porttobacco.blogspot.com

Jun 7, 2011 12:43:22 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

I am not sure how available the archaeological data is, but there is a well preserved and scrutinized 1890s small community synagogue on the Auraria campus in Denver, CO known as the "Emmanuel Center" (it has been revitalized as a student gallery space) that was excavated in the 1970s prior to reuse improvements. You could contact the Metropolitan State College of Denver Department of Behavioral Sciences to see if they still retain the site data.

Sean Doyle 

Julie Abell Horn  wrote:

Dear Fellow Histarchers,

My colleagues and I are working on an rural site in Connecticut that contains foundation remains of a ca. 1890s synagogue, ca. 1910s mikvah, and ca. 1890s creamery building.  We are looking for any comparative archaeological data on these three types of features in the U.S.  So far we know about the two mikvah sites in lower Manhattan and the one in Baltimore, but are unaware of any others.  We also are having trouble finding archaeological data for synagogues: most sites seem to deal with the superstructure, not the archaeological remains.  Creamery data are also tricky to find; most of the references I've seen are for the Midwest.  I have done the usual internet searches and searches of a number of SHPO and NRHP databases.  We have much historical data for Jewish occupation in Connecticut already and so are mostly looking for archaeological data at this point.  We would greatly appreciate any information you could share.

Feel free to contact me off-list.

Thanks.

Julie Abell Horn, M.A., R.P.A.
Historical Perspectives, Inc.