Dear Alasdair and everyone else who responded both on- and off-list - 

Thanks so much for all the great suggestions. Alasdair, I agree that it is far more likely that the bottles came from a nearby source than were shipped from San Francisco (or from Michigan - another location were beverages branded as Salutaris were produced en masses) to England. It is interesting, as you note, that bottles were rarely shipped far from their point of manufacture during this period, which is a sharp contrast with the global flows of material culture that were well established otherwise. 

I always learn so much from this list. Thanks again everyone!
--Barb

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Barbara L. Voss, Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 50, Main Quad
Stanford University
Stanford CA 94305-2034
650 723-3421 (dept office)
650 725-0605 (fax)
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-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alasdair Brooks
Sent: Friday, June 10, 2011 3:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: 1906 alcohol bottle query

Dear Barb,I've recently been analysing several late 19th, early 20th-century bottle assemblages from the north of England (all from Yorkshire).I know of no period-appropriate evidence from Yorkshire that bottles from San Francisco would have reached northern England.  In fact, until the second decade of the 20th century - with the foundation of United Glass in 1913, and the consolidation of the St. Helens-based glass industries - much north of England glass manufacture and consumption remains highly localised.  Identifiable marked (whether by firm or manufacturer) bottles are most typically associated with a fairly tight 25 mile radius of deposition.  This contrasts rather starkly with several other British manufacturing industries, though that's perhaps a topic for another e-mail.Evidence of any bottle imports from outside the United Kingdom is highly limited in these assemblages, basically restricted to a French baby-feeding bottle, and one _possible_ import from New York -
 
  the fragmentary evidence isn't conclusive on the latter.This isn't definitive proof that a bottle of Californian Salutaris Bitters wouldn't have made it to the UK since the only data I have is selective and regional, but I consider it unlikely for a number of reasons.  However, having now read pages 38-39 of Mrs. Havelock Ellis' book - where the reference occurs in a chapter charmingly titled 'drink' - I note that the main characters do refer to Salutaris as a "foreign speerit ... perhaps Roosian [sic]"; this isn't necessarily intended to be taken at face value.  They are confused over finding the unfamiliar 'Salutaris' bottle mixed in with alcohol bottles; their reaction probably seemed comical to contemporary readers, who would have been more familiar with the contents.Salutaris water is simply aerated bottled water which was sometimes bottled in champagne bottles.  It was sometimes mixed with alcohol, but not necessarily. Salutaris water was made and bottled by
  
 the late 19th, early 20th century Salutaris Water Company of Fulham, London.  There is no need for American imports from San Francisco for a British household to own salutaris water bottles.It was also a common treatment for gout in the early 20th century.  Your colleague may be interested in the introduction of chapter 6, 'diet in gout' of George Alexander Sutherland's near-contemporary 1908 Oxford University Press book "A System of Diet and Dietetics".This 1880 advert from the British Library may also prove useful:http://ogimages.bl.uk/images/014/014EVA000000000U07554V00[SVC2].jpgHope that helps,Alasdair Brooks

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Dear HistArch'ers

On behalf of a colleague of mine in English literature, I'm reposting this
query in case any of you might be able to help:

"The 1906 book 'My Cornish Neighbors' by Edith Ellis has a passage that
refers to alcohol bottles with red and white labels with the word
"Salutaris" printed on them. Do you know what spirit this would be? Where
was it made? Is there anywhere I could find an image of this kind of
bottle?"

Thanks in advance for any suggestions. A quick google search revealed a
Saluteris Bitters produced in San Francisco around this time but I am not
sure if that would have been exported to England during this period?

--Barb