Good afternoon all,
Since we are on the topic of migrants, Connecticut DOT recently accomplished some work on a first and second generation Irish and Italian immigrant community as a joint effort with the City of Waterbury. It's nowhere near as in depth as what Dr. Voss just shared, having been carried out as part of a limited cultural resource management effort--but we're kind of proud of it around here. Our press release is below, it was carried by SHA and the CNEHA newsletter early last year. But we now also have a short video of the excavations the City produced https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxuOL2I9RUE and a color booklet https://www.ct.gov/dot/lib/dot/documents/denviro/dogsnest/dogsnestbooklet_finalaug2018_reduced.pdf available on our Department web site. Take a second to have a look, if you would, and if you like please share widely on social media and relevant listervers.
CTDOT ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE JACKSON STREET "DOG'S NEST" SITE IN PREPARATION FOR ROUTE 8 INTERCHANGE IMPROVEMENTS IN WATERBURY
The Connecticut Department of Transportation recently completed archaeological investigations at the site of a forgotten residential neighborhood between the Pan Am railyards and the Naugatuck River south of the I-84/Route 8 "Mixmaster" in the City of Waterbury. While this area today appears as a set of desolate and non-descript abandoned industrial pads tucked away in a difficult to access corner of the City, from the middle of the 19th to the early 20th Century it was a vibrant neighborhood of first and second generation of Irish and Italian immigrants. Closed in between Waterbury's coal-fired gasification plant, the New York and New England Railroad, and the Brown & Brothers Brass Rolling Mill, and with the industrial waste water coursing directly through their backyards in what was called the Manhan Canal, Jackson Street was not exactly prime real estate. The community had a reputation for alcoholism and violence recognized as far away as Bridgeport, where the Bridgeport Herald in 1898 referred to it disparagingly as the "Dog's Nest" and called it "one of the worst [neighborhoods] to be found anywhere". Nevertheless, census records and other documents inform us that these people contributed to the 19th Century growth and prosperity of Waterbury and the State of Connecticut as a whole by working at the local brass mills and as laborers at various other factories in the City. They became citizens, and in many cases landlords, proprietors and entrepreneurs in their own right, sometimes working out of their own homes. Within their community they often maintained the language of their country of origin, retaining and passing on key elements of their native lifeways that were eventually incorporated into what we consider to be "American" culture today. Despite marginalization, ill-treatment and bigotry, and being left to live in unhealthy and even dangerous conditions, they survived and passed on their legacy. When the railroad and gas works expanded further into the neighborhood after 1904, however, the inhabitants of the Jackson Street "Dog's Nest" were increasingly driven out. By 1917 insurance maps show no homes remaining in this area. The residents presumably dispersed into the burgeoning suburbs and many may well have descendants residing in various parts of the City to this day.
Through investigations of the site, archaeologists aimed to learn how Waterbury's 19th Century immigrants survived in the face of adversity. Excavations revealed more than half a dozen building foundations associated with the neighborhood. The building foundations were constructed of varying quality. The homes were of substantial size and all contained multiple families, sometimes up to 30 or more persons at one time. Several had running water and septic drainage systems. Artifactual remains so far have revealed the presence of horses for transportation, widespread use of medicinals, indications of tobacco and alcohol use, work boots and industrial implements, and occasional luxuries such as molded glass and silver eating utensils. Ceramic holy water fonts also attest to the neighborhood's Catholic heritage. Investigators look forward to further discoveries of intact features, such as sealed wells, privies or cisterns, which might serve to tie particular collections of artifacts to specific buildings.
Through cooperative efforts with the City of Waterbury, which also has a pending transportation project affecting the Jackson Street Site funded by a Federal TIGER grant, a short documentary video celebrating the site and describing the archaeological excavations was recently produced. There is also a colorful public booklet describing work at the Site coming out soon.
The CTDOT Office of Environmental Planning engaged this archaeological effort under the mandate of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and cultural resource provisions of the Connecticut Environmental Policy Act. By virtue of the use of Federal funds, CTDOT is required to consider the impacts of its undertakings upon the natural, cultural and historic environment. In the course of repairing the aging I-84 / Route 8 interchange ramp system, it has been found to be necessary to construct a temporary highway bypass across the Naugatuck River along the edge of Jackson Street. The proposed route of this bypass runs directly through the former Jackson Street "Dog's Nest" site, and CTDOT in recognizing its responsibilities to stewardship to the State's historic and cultural resources, deemed it appropriate to identify what remains of the site, what useful historic information might be obtained from it, and whether or not the remains may merit preservation beneath the proposed temporary bypass. CTDOT takes great pride in contributing to general knowledge about the immigrant experience, and in celebrating the many contributions immigrants from all parts of the globe have made to the City of Waterbury, to the State of Connecticut, and to our nation as a whole.
Much obliged,
C. Scott Speal
National Register Specialist, Archaeology
Environmental Documents / Cultural Resources Unit
Office of Environmental Planning
Connecticut Department of Transportation
2800 Berlin Turnpike
Newington, CT 06131
Phone: 860-594-2918
Fax: 860-594-3028
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-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Barbara Voss
Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2019 11:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: archaeology of Chinese migrants' home villages
Dear colleagues (with apologies for cross-posting),
For the past five years, I have been part of a transnational, interdisciplinary team of researchers who have been using historical archaeology techniques to investigate the home villages of 19th century Chinese migrants.
I'm pleased to announce the public launch of the website for our first project - the Cangdong Village Project (https://cangdong.stanford.edu/).
In 2016 and 2017, we conducted surface survey and subsurface testing of deposits from the late Qing (1875-1912) and Early Republic (1912-1927) periods. We are now analyzing the recovered artifacts and ecofacts to learn how village residents were affected by migration, and to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural backgrounds of Chinese who immigrated to the United States in the 19th century.
The highlight of the website is filmmaker Barre Fong's documentary, "Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project." You can view a trailer here (https://vimeo.com/326082052) and the full-length film is streaming on the project website (https://cangdong.stanford.edu/documentary-film).
A short article about the Cangdong Village Project is available at: https://news.stanford.edu/2019/04/02/digging-clues-lives-19th-century-chinese-migrants/.
We'll continue to develop the website in the weeks ahead, adding full Chinese translation to the website and to the documentary, an English language technical report of our investigation, and a teaching guide with lesson plans for classroom viewings of the documentary film.
Because this project is among the first archaeological studies of Chinese migrants' home villages, we are committed to full public access to our research results. To that end, all materials on the Cangdong Village Project website are released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license, so they can be freely downloaded, streamed, shared, and distributed.
Please help us spread the word about this resource to colleagues and students who may be interested.
My heartfelt thanks to the three partner organizations (Guangdong Qiaoxiang Cultural Research Center at Wuyi University, the Guangdong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Stanford Archaeology Center), project funders, cooperating organizations, team members, and especially the residents of Cangdong Village who so warmly welcomed our research team.
--Barb
-----------------------------------------------
Barbara L. Voss, Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
450 Serra Mall, Bldg. 50, Main Quad
Stanford University
Stanford CA 94305-2034
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https://web.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=node/75
https://stanford.academia.edu/BarbaraVoss
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