Mary Ellin-
 
     This note is not to the point you asked regarding the artifact side
     of chamber pots, but it does raise some questions which you or
     others may find interesting or may even be able to address.
 
     While researching ice pits and icehouses (the same research which
     initiated my histarch question about historic seeds and plants) I came
     across the diary of William White from Vance County, NC (southern
     Piedmont).  White owned and supplied a local store at Enterprise, now
     Drewry, NC.  The diary covers the period 1850-1910.  In the diary,
     there are numerous references to moving barns and houses, rebuilding
     icehouses, potato houses, digging flower pits, tobacco barn pits, etc.
     But I do not recall a single reference to privies.  There are
     references to fertilizing fields, composting (in one entry White
     mentions having 70 tons of compost), and manure (manure includes
     rotten wood chips, not just animal waste).  It is also clear that
     White mixed his own fertilizers using commercial acid phosphate in the
     mix.  Was human waste collected for composting?  What WAS the attitude
     towards "relief" in the 19th-century U.S.?  These folks (the Whites)
     had lots of visitors in only a moderately sized home.  Did they hand
     each one a chamber pot?
 
     One thing which may account for a lack of mention in the White diary
     is gender roles.  Even though the White diary, a man's diary, talks a
     lot about building and supplying icehouses, it doesn't say a thing
     about using icehouses; there is no mention of what crops went into
     the icehouse or how they went in.  I suspect that the diary stops
     with men's' work and that the rest of the story is missing because
     Mrs. White and her staff were running the house.  This would include
     provisioning the icehouse and, I would guess, collecting chamber pots
     and disposing of night soil (but where?). If she had left a diary, or
     if we could find her diary, would she talk about collecting chamber
     pots?  Do other diaries of the period?
 
     Richard Kimmel
 
 
 
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: chamber pots, 17th-18th c.
Author:  [log in to unmask] at Internet
Date:    11/12/97 1:52 AM
 
 
For those of you who work on 17th and early 18th c. assemblages:
I am attempting to deal with questions regarding chamber pots (materials and
associations) that appear in 17th c. probate inventories and need some
background regarding chamber pots in the archaeological record.  Noel-Hume
indicates that chamber pots are 'common' on 17th c. sites and that the form
varies until it becomes standardized in the 18th c. (with variations
dependent on the particular ceramic body). However, the reports on ceramics
from 17th c. sites I have been able to look at don't mention chamber pots.
Does this mean that they are not common on 17th c. sites and that Noel-Hume
is mistaken? Are they just infrequent and boring enough not to get mentioned
in the reports? Or, is the focus on foodways when discussing ceramics the
culprit?
 
If you do know of examples of chamber pots, what material are they made of
(lead glazed earthenware, tin-glazed earthenware, stoneware)? Are they fancy
or utilitarian? How frequently do they occur? References to site reports
that actually do discuss them would be appreciated!
 
Thanks,
Mary Ellin D'Agostino
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