Recent postings by Shannon Dawdy and Heather Griggs underscore the critical
role archaeology has to play in the examination of ethnic and gender
stereotypes.  Clearly, there are often many ways to look at the same data.  I
would like to point out that the low quantitites of alcohol bottles Heather
reported don't necessary equate with the temperance of the tenament dwellers.
It is also possible that the pattern she found is a product of where alcohol
consumption was taking place and, perhaps also by whom.
 
An alternate interpretation could be that the menfolk drank outside the
household at pubs and the womenfolk drank (patent medicines with high alcohol
content) covertly at home.  It would be important to compare the relative
abundance of patent medicines from the Irish tenament site with  other ethnic
neighborhood sites to get a better handle on the question of whether or not an
extraordinary number of medicinal products were in use.  I suppose the
differntial health status of the populations would have to be controlled to
make the analysis meaningful.
 
I'm assuming the occupation of the site Heather speaks of is late nineteenth
century, since the greatest influx of Irish immigrants cameto the USA in the
wake of the potato famine.  If so, it would be interesting to consider the role
of the dominant Victorian values of the period on household drinking patterns.
 
I excavated several privies associated with a semi-rural late 19th century
Irish occupation in Castroville, California and found moderate alcohol use and
low quantities of medicine bottles.  With regard to health status, the results
of a parasiological analysis were negative, though two of the children in the
family died of unspecified causes.  Despite the family's modest means, there
was an emphasis placed on a few more expensive materials such as parlor items
indicative of the influence of Victorian values.
 
 What interested me was the wide variety of alcohol types consumed, which
included champagne, wine, ale, beer, whiskey, and possibly liqueurs (suggested
by the recovery of several diminuitive fine crytsal stemware glasses).  The
wine, champagne, and liqueur suggest refinements not entirely out of keeping
with the family's Victorian aspirations to advance in society.  If alcohol was
being heavily consumed, which it apparently wasn't, I would have expected
mostly inexpensive types of alcohol bottles (given the family's limited means)
in higher quantities than we recovered.  Other interpretations are of course
possible--and I think those loose ends offer productive avenues for future
studies.
 
>>> Shannon Dawdy <[log in to unmask]> 11/18/97 02:54pm >>>
I was glad to see Heather Grigg's professional response offering an
exchange of information to Stewart-Abernathy's attack on the NEw Orleans
Irish paper.  I know the author and their work and, although there are
some legitimate questions to be raised, I was a little taken aback by
Stewart-Abernathy's venom.
 
The paper (and another on gender-related medicine consumption) was based
on data collected over 10 years ago in the most extensive archaeological
project ever undertaken in poor, neglected New Orleans.  The data on over
34 properties in a 56 city block project area was collected and reported in
such a through and professional manner, that the project continues to
supply the single most important baseline on 19th-century immigrant
New Orleans.
 
I believe the author based their findings on a comparison of dozens of
identifiable Irish, German, Italian, and American households, so the
conclusions were not without local context.  That still leaves the question
of whether the patent medicine was being consumed for medicinal or
alcoholic purposes.  I suppose one could equally argue the Irish were a
bunch of hypochondriacs compared to their neighbors.
 
Questions of ethnicity are bound to raise hackles when old stereotypes appear
to be reinforced.  The real question should be why or how Heather and the
author came up with similar results in the data but totally different
conclusions.  Is archaeology telling us anything here or can the data be
manipulated either to reinforce or to refute ethnic stereotypes according to
the persuasiveness of the author?  When data do seem to reinforce stereo-
types, do we suppress this information because it might be mis-used, or
is it useless because it is only reiterating "common knowledge"?
 
Thoughtful responses in a spirit of inquiry are welcome.  Vituperative
attacks on potential competitors are not.
 
-- Shannon Lee Dawdy (BTW, of "poor drunken Irish" extraction)
Greater New Orleans Archaeology Program
University of New Orleans
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