PRESS RELEASE:
Berkeley -- Studying garbage may not sound like the best choice for a
college term project.
But students in a University of California at Berkeley archaeology
class did just that recently and discovered a slice of life in the early
1900s at Xeta Psi, the oldest fraternity west of the Mississippi River.
In 1995, a construction crew discovered an old trash pit behind UC
Berkeley's Archaeological Research Facility on College Avenue. Faculty
and students in the building mobilized and rescued thousands of
artifacts -- most of them dating from 1918 to 1930, when the facility
was home to Xeta Psi.
The "fraternalia" -- a term coined by Laurie Wilkie, the UC Berkeley
assistant professor of anthropology who taught the undergraduate
historical archaeology lab -- included empty beer and ketchup bottles,
antique light bulbs, dental care products, an ROTC emblem from a cap,
broken dishes decorated with the fraternity's crest, ink bottles, hair
pins and beads.
Xeta Psi, still on campus today, received its charter from the
university in 1871 and was Berkeley's first fraternity. Its first house
was built in 1876, on the same property as the Archaeological Research
Facility. The three-story building later was moved to a nearby lot,
became a school for boys and then was destroyed in a fire.
A larger house, the same brick building that now houses the research
facility, was built for the brothers in 1910. In the early 1920s, an
archival photo shows some of the 30 (?) fraternity members digging a
trash pit in their backyard.
Decades later, their garbage became a gold mine for students in
Wilkie's class. They used the semester to analyze artifacts they had
unearthed, discoveries made on their own campus.
"It's more authentic than analyzing someone else's finds," said
Lorinda
Miller, one of the students. "This is our research."
"We're making it so that people can come along and use our information
for a bigger project," said her classmate, Persephone Hintlian.
To construct the most complete view of the past, Wilkie, a historical
archaeologist, had the students not only analyze the artifacts, but also
dig up supplementary archival information including oral history,
diaries, blueprints, photographs and yearbooks.
Miller and Hintlian, for example, contacted the fraternity's national
headquarters to track down former residents of the house. They found two
elderly men who were "tickled to death" to be interviewed, said Miller.
The men recalled a strict daily schedule at the house, with formal
group meals, mandatory study times, and rules forbidding women in the
house, except during spring dances. They added that the brothers were
very loyal to the campus, to the fraternity and to sports.
Student Geoff Hughes found this formality and loyalty echoed in the
building's architecture and design. The Xeta Psi emblem can be seen on
white disks above the front entrance to the building and on the chimney.
Some of the ceiling woodwork once was painted in UC Berkeley blue and
gold, and the fraternity ate from dishes specially ordered from an East
Coast china company.
The "fratware," as Wilkie's students dubbed the dishes, was decorated
with Xeta Psi's dark green crest. Confused at first about finding broken
demitasse cups and tea cups in the trash, class research revealed that
the fraternity had a mother's club that met at the house for tea.
"Meals were structured and etiquettely correct," said Wilkie. "By
using
these special dishes, the fraternity members were reinforcing through
imagery their sense of brotherhood."
She said several pieces of "completely functional" but slightly worn
or
chipped dishes were found in the trash pit, suggesting that the fratware
pieces were "prestige items. Those that were cracked or handleless had
lost their prestige and new ones were ordered."
The food, however, apparently was not as appealing as the dishes it
was
served on.
Bones found among the artifacts indicated the brothers ate inexpensive
cuts of meat, said Wilkie, and the large number of condiment bottles --
including 46 empty Del Monte ketchup bottles -- suggest their cuisine
"was not particularly tasty."
The discovery in the trash pit of bottles that once contained medicine
for stomach ailments only adds to that theory, she said.
Dental hygiene items gave the class a glimpse of tooth care in the
early 1900s. A toothbrush head made of bone that was almost three inches
long showed how "the only teeth people worried about brushing back then
were the teeth people could see," said Wilkie.
At the time, she said, only society's upper class, which included some
of the fraternity brothers, practiced dental hygiene. Bottles of
mouthwash found among the artifacts could indicate it was used for
status, said Wilkie, "or to disguise alcohol breath."
Old advertisements and formal photographs of the brothers with their
hair slicked down helped explain the Vaseline jars recovered from the
site.
Likewise, learning that ROTC training was required back then of all
upperclassmen gave meaning to the ROTC crest that was found.
At first, the discovery of hair pins and beads confused Wilkie's
class,
since rules were strict about women visiting the house. But then,
archival photos were found of some of the fraternity brothers dressed up
as women.
"There was definitely evidence of some degree of cross-dressing going
on -- it's still part of fraternity life today in the way of skits and
making parodies of women," said Wilkie. " It was how they reasserted
their maleness," A 1933 diary kept jointly by Xeta Psi freshmen
provided a wealth of information, especially about how the brothers
coped with Prohibition, which began in 1919 -- and how they celebrated
when it was repealed in 1933.
"Today it is legal to buy anything you may wish," one freshman wrote
on
Nov. 6. "The only fly in the ointment seems that there will not be
sufficient beverage to satisfy the demand."
More than 70 percent of the beverage bottles found at the site were
beer bottles, said Wilkie. Five percent were for wine, 13 percent for
hard liquor and 12 percent for soda or mineral water.
"We all know that just because liquor was illegal doesn't mean it
wasn't consumed," she said. "That they had access to real alcohol was
clear from their diary."
While members of Xeta Psi were proud of their academic prowess, high
grade point averages and successful alumni, Wilkie said that, other than
ink bottles, there were not many school supplies found.
"Education wasn't what was bringing these individuals together," she
said. "The big thing at Xeta Psi was sports, especially crew and
baseball. Their shared love of school was evidenced in sports and
rallies."
Samantha Holtkamp, a student in the lab class who examined ceramics
and
tableware found at the site, said she enjoyed being able to compare
"what went on back then and what's going on now" on campus.
The research project that she and her classmates began will continue.
Wilkie said their work eventually will be published in a journal.
"This has been a unique opportunity to study the community life of men
on campus," said Wilkie. "A more complete portrait will emerge in the
future."
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Gretchen Kell
U.C.-Berkeley Public Information Office
101 Sproul Hall
(510) 642-3136
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Mary Ellin D'Agostino
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