Port Richmond Archaeology

Gleaning information from archaeological remains can be a complex process. Archaeological interpretations are limited by what survives in the ground, which results from a complex history of site-formation processes. In the case of many of the Port Richmond sites, substantial historical grading truncated the natural soil column, meaning that intact archaeological deposits often only survive in deep features preserved below the depth of historical disturbance. Despite the truncation of archaeological deposits from historical grading and construction activities, surviving features within the Port Richmond sites offered archaeologists windows into the past enabling them to chronicle people’s daily lives.

The past ground-disturbing activities associated with the initial construction of I-95 led to grading and removal of some of the upper layers of soil across most of the sites in the neighborhood. This historical grading frequently eliminated shallower deposits like yards and middens, which archaeologists often analyze. As shaft features were typically deep holes cut into the soil, portions of them survived intact even in areas where past construction and grading caused substantial truncation of the original soil column. Apart from structural remains like foundations, shaft features were one of the few feature classes with a deep enough footprint to remain intact while the soil column was truncated. As a result, the interpretation of historical archaeological sites in Port Richmond was almost wholly dependent on the analysis of archaeological deposits recovered from shaft features.

Types of Shaft Features in Port Richmond

Shaft features are deliberately cut holes in the ground intended to function as voids or containers, only fulfilling the purpose for which they were built when not filled up with soil. Introducing fill soils into such features negates the purpose for which they were initially created and is generally seen as evidence that a shaft feature was being abandoned or transitioned to a secondary function, like a trash dump. There are several primary categories of shaft feature, including privies, cesspits, wells, and cisterns. Shaft features like privies or cesspits are deep, often lined pits for collecting human waste and storing it until it can be removed off site. Privies are shafts that are open to the air, while cesspits are storage tanks that are closed at the top and fed by a pipe. It is frequently difficult to discern the difference archaeologically in the absence of a surviving pipe, as such features have often been truncated to a depth below where a pipe would have entered. Furthermore, cesspits often have their tops removed during abandonment to facilitate easier filling. Other shaft features, such as wells, are cut tunnels into the ground designed to allow groundwater to the surface. Cisterns are large underground containers for storing water. In Port Richmond, the only shaft features encountered were privies or cesspits—considered sanitary features, given their principal purpose of collecting human effluent.

While the excavated sites in Port Richmond only contained sanitary features, features like wells undoubtedly existed at some point during the early periods of occupation in the first half of the nineteenth century. However, the neighborhood very quickly was equipped with municipal water, eliminating the need for groundwater wells. The push for clean drinking water was due in large part to an increasing awareness of public health during the early nineteenth century in response to the frequent epidemic outbreaks of typhoid, yellow fever, and especially cholera in the city. Both cholera and typhoid are waterborne infections frequently caused by bacteria from sanitary shafts leeching into the groundwater feeding nearby wells. Cholera epidemics tore through the city in 1832, 1849, and 1866, each time prompting discussions about sanitation and the need for clean water.¹ These public-health concerns contributed to the early adoption of municipal water infrastructure in the growing neighborhood of Port Richmond. Ann Street between Melvale and Richmond had municipal water by 1865; Melvale Street, on the southeast side of the Cambria–Ann Site, by 1855; Salmon Street, on the northwest side of the Somerset–Cambria Site, by 1860; and Richmond Street by as early as the 1830s, with replacement lines being installed in 1874. ² William Street (now Cambria) went in at a similarly early period, though the exact date is not recorded. The water infrastructure of the Port Richmond neighborhood, at least in the area of the Cambria–Ann and Somerset–Cambria Sites, largely kept pace with the growth of the neighborhood—meaning ready access to water without the need for wells. The contemporary development of the neighborhood buildings and its water infrastructure seems to offer an explanation as to why well features were not encountered during excavations.

Laws were on the books by 1885 mandating that all newly constructed dwellings in the city be connected to the municipal sewer if available.³ However, such statutes did not really affect the areas of archaeological excavation in Port Richmond, as by the 1880s, the properties within the sites had all been largely developed and were therefore grandfathered. Furthermore, a sanitary sewer was not available in the vicinity of the Somerset–Cambria or Cambria–Ann Sites until the first decade of the twentieth century. This made the applicability of the law to the properties within these sites largely irrelevant during the late nineteenth century. The sewer plans the Philadelphia Public Works Department maintained suggest that a main trunk sewer was introduced along Somerset Street by 1895. A sewer along Richmond Street connecting it to the Somerset Street outfall was built between 1902 and 1903. Sewer connections along Ann and Cambria Streets did not arrive until 1910.⁴ Connections along the northwest side of Melvale seem to have relied on connecting to these other existing sewers through the back lots, as no formal sewer is recorded along Melvale during this period. The fact that utilities like a public sewer were not available in the neighborhood until the twentieth century helps explain why sanitary features like privies and cesspits were so prolific in Port Richmond, as they were the only option during most of the nineteenth century. A similar statute explains why so many shafts were abandoned when a house was connected to the sewer. A statute, passed in 1885, made it illegal for a cesspit/cesspool to feed into a sewer. When a building established a connection to the sewer system, it had to abandon its pervious sanitary infrastructure and replace it with direct connection to the sewer.⁵

The sanitary shaft features encountered during the Port Richmond archaeological excavations generally fell into three main types of shaft: barrel, box, and brick-lined. Barrel shafts were, as the name suggests, shaft features created by burying a barrel and leaving an open top to the cask (Figure 1). Box privies were wood-lined structures, typically square or rectangular in shape, excavated into the earth (Figure 2). Brick-lined shafts were typically round holes cut into the ground and then lined with a course of dry-laid red brick (Figure 3). Lastly, excavations identified a number of composite shaft types that were a hybrid of the other three types. Composite shafts included box privies that exhibited cask shafts at the bases to achieve a greater depth and brick-lined shafts with similar downward extensions made of casks or timbers. Such composite structures were relatively uncommon configurations but are examples of attempts to achieve greater sanitary storage capacity.

Archaeologists typically identify shaft features by noticing a distinct difference in the soil/sediment in a localized area relative to the surrounding soils. Shaft features often appear as dark stains against the lighter background of the natural soils, a result of the different soil/sediment used to infill the feature vault and restore the area to grade. Feature fills often contain a variety of artifacts that were deposited at the time of abandonment. In an age before reliable trash collection, dumping household trash into open holes in the backyard—especially ones that you needed to fill in—was a common practice. Abandoned shaft features therefore frequently contain datable deposits of artifacts that can help archaeologists interpret a site.

Knowing the date associated with the fill sediment of an abandoned shaft feature is not the same thing as knowing the date of the feature’s construction or use. The date of a feature’s fill tells archaeologists when the use of the feature changed from being a deliberate hole with a particular purpose (in the case of a privy/cesspit to store effluent) to a trash dump that would be filled up back to ground surface. The date associated with the earliest abandonment-related feature fill layer (usually the deepest fill) tells us only when that feature stop being used for its original purpose but cannot really tell us how long the feature had been in use prior to its abandonment. A privy shaft may have been used for 20 years or more prior to being abandoned, and evidence of that long-term use does not necessarily show up archaeologically. In much the same way a modern port-o-john must be regularly cleaned in order to remain operational, historical privy features were routinely cleaned out to keep them functional. While liquid effluent typically drained into the ground, privies and cesspits contained the solid human waste material called nightsoil within the vaults of the shafts. To keep a privy operational, this nightsoil was periodically cleaned out and removed off site by individuals called hod carriers. The nightsoil was stockpiled and frequently sold as agricultural fertilizer. ⁶ Very little material in the past was wasted and even human excrement had value.

While most privies were routinely cleaned out, remnant deposits of nightsoil were occasionally left behind in privy shafts if the cleanout was not overly thorough. Some activities related to the active usage of a privy can survive in such deposits, as people did discard trash and other things into privies while in use. Ordinances drafted in 1867 made it illegal to deposit ashes, rubbish, stones, bricks, or cinders into an active privy well if you were not the owner, which suggests that such a practice was common enough behavior among Philadelphia’s tenant population to warrant legislation to prevent it. It seems that the activity was actively discouraged, as the fine was $500 or up to two years in jail if caught. ⁷ While depositing trash into privies may have been common, this does not mean that the fill material found within a privy inherently represents the gradual accumulation of material deposited by people using the privy. The routine cleaning of privies effectively prevented the gradual accumulation of material within a privy vault each time it was emptied. Additionally, by the beginning of the twentieth century, legislation required a privy vault to be cleaned out, disinfected, and inspected before abandonment. ⁸ As such, only remnant deposits of nightsoil survive in most shaft features, if at all. Such remnant nightsoil deposits are often the only direct evidence of the main use life of the feature as a sanitary shaft. While artifacts might abound in the fills used to close up the remaining shaft, those fill deposits are related to the action of abandoning the feature, not its use as a sanitary shaft. Even surviving nightsoil deposits do not help establish when a feature was created, only that it was in use during the time to which the nightsoil deposit dates. Much of the material related to the use of a feature for its intended purpose therefore remains archaeologically invisible and is not available to help date the construction of the feature. On rare occasions, shaft features exhibit builder’s trenches, cuts made in the ground into which a feature was constructed and then backfilled against. Such trenches can include dating evidence to help determine when a shaft feature was created; however, builder’s trenches are uncommon in relation to shaft features, as shafts are large-diameter holes and can be built from the inside out, eliminating the need to dig an exterior construction trench.

As the principal dating evidence for a shaft comes from its abandonment fill, archaeologists have a reliable means for ascertaining when a feature was abandoned but frequently lack evidence of when a sanitary shaft feature was constructed and how long it was in service.

Dating sanitary shaft features and constructing site chronologies for such features on urban sites is largely reliant on the dating of feature fill deposits. Archaeologists use several dating techniques to help establish a date for feature fill deposits and determine when a feature was abandoned. One of the principal analytical methods employed to date archaeological deposits involves determining a terminus post quem (TPQ)—that is, a “date after which” a deposit was laid down. This concept relies on identifying the most recently produced artifact in the deposit and assigning its earliest manufacturing date to the whole deposit. If everything in a soil layer was deposited at the same time as a discrete action, the deposit could not have been laid down before the newest thing in it was first made. For example, consider an uncovered layer with three coins in it: one dating to 1850, one dating to 1860, and one dating to 1870. While it is tempting to say that the layer dates to 1850 because that is the earliest produced coin, you must think of the soil layer as a sealed box with everything having gone in at once. As three coins were found in a single unit, we know that this could not have happened before 1870, when the newest coin was first produced. Therefore, the remainder of the artifacts in that layer must also have been laid down at some point after 1870. TPQ can be a difficult concept to grasp in some instances, when a wide variety of artifacts are present in a layer, but is nevertheless a common technique archaeologists use to date deposits. This technique was employed on each feature fill layer within historical shaft features encountered in Port Richmond. Dating feature fill layers via TPQ provided archaeologists with some idea as to when different features were abandoned, and potentially how long that process took.

While the TPQ can help provide the approximate date of abandonment in ascribing a date to a shaft’s feature fill deposits, using that information to understand the shaft chronology on a site requires the understanding of another concept. Knowing when something stopped being used for a particular purpose provides another type of date, called a terminus ante quem, or TAQ— “date before which”—effectively the opposite of the TPQ. The TAQ is used to ascertain the latest possible date an event could have happened—for instance, the construction of a shaft. For obvious reasons, if we know that a shaft was abandoned in 1880, then the latest it could have possibly been built in time to have been around to be abandoned is also 1880. While this is largely semantic, it means that a shaft feature had to be in existence and in use prior to its abandonment. In the case of most shaft features, the TPQ for the oldest abandonment deposit is the TAQ for the primary use life of the shaft. Using this logical argument, we can get a sense of when a shaft feature’s use as a sanitary shaft ended. Knowing when a shaft was abandoned enables us to conclude that it was in use prior to that point.

This information about when a shaft was abandoned can be used to help create a chronology of a property by combining it with other streams of data or looking at the shaft’s relationship to other shaft features on the same parcel. For example, if a parcel had a brick-lined shaft abandoned in 1880, a box shaft abandoned in 1860, and the property was first developed in 1849, a chronology can be established. The presumption is that barring a substantial increase in population on a parcel, individual properties are unlikely to have had multiple privies concurrently, so that when one is abandoned, another feature of similar function but perhaps different construction style is built to take over its role. Again, this is difficult to prove beyond doubt and there are certainly instances that counter this hypothesis, but overall, in many instances, this appears to be the case. Assuming that the hypothetical parcel was completely excavated and only two shaft features were encountered, archaeologists could present a chronology where the box privy was in use from the initial development of the lot in 1849 through to its abandonment in 1860. Following the box privy’s abandonment, it was replaced by a brick-lined privy that remained in use between 1860 and 1880. Rarely is the data so clear cut, but the example serves to illustrate the general principles archaeologists employed to construct the neighborhood shaft chronology for Port Richmond. In Port Richmond, archaeologists encountered a variety of shaft features with abandonment deposits spanning most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using the dating techniques described above and looking at such features across a wide area, archaeologists were able to identify several general trends related to shaft construction and use, as well as changes to both over time in the Port Richmond neighborhood. 

Port Richmond Shaft Chronology

Because of the limitation of the available dating evidence coming principally from abandonment fill deposits, the neighborhood-wide shaft chronology can only effectively depict when features “went out of use.” However, due to the TAQ concept, the “went out of use” date implies that an abandoned shaft was “in use” prior to that point. The primary limitation is that, by this dating logic, a privy could have been “in use” on the property as long as the property had been occupied. Again, this requires the reasonable assumption that having numerous concurrently operating conveniences on site was not the reality and that likely a sequence of development occurred. While the idea of concurrent use can be supported in select instances, these represent the exception, not the rule. Therefore, by combining the initial occupation dates for a property as a start date for the shaft feature sequence, archaeologists can conservatively ascertain that a feature was in use between the date the property was first occupied and the date it was abandoned. This can be further refined by addressing the abandonment progression on a particular property and establishing the likely end date of one feature as the likely construction date of the next most recently abandoned feature (provided the entire parcel has been examined). This approach allows for an assessment of when features were changing in the neighborhood and the identification of some trends. The resultant chronology is a reflection of when features were abandoned, broken down by decade in Figure 4 and by year of abandonment and shaft type in Figure 5.

Figure 4: Map of all features classified by decade of abandonment.

Figure 5: Timeline map of shaft features showing feature type, date of creation (where available), and date of abandonment.

Having established an abandonment chronology for shaft features within the Port Richmond neighborhood, one of the major questions archaeologists sought to address was whether or not the type of sanitation shaft employed was related to a specific time period or whether other factors influenced the choice of sanitation technology. In order to perform the analysis, the data sets from two similar sites, Cambria–Ann and Somerset–Cambria, were selected because they are contemporary sites, spatially close to one another, and, crucially, have a sufficient density of shaft features to create a meaningful sample size. Between these two sites, a total of 59 shaft features were uncovered, 57 of which had sufficient dating evidence to produce abandonment dates. Within the dataset of 59 privies, the distribution between the subtypes of shafts is more or less evenly split between box and brick-lined shafts, with a lesser number of barrel-type shafts (Figure 6). Additionally, some shafts were classed as composite, as they were a combination of a box with a barrel at the base, or a brick shaft with a timber or barrel extension.

Archaeologists divided the total number of features of a shaft subtype by the total number of that subtype which had been abandoned by a particular point in time to create a comparative timeline of abandonment by shaft subtype. Between 1840 and 1859, seven barrel-type shafts, four box shafts, and two brick shafts were abandoned. As the neighborhood really did not exist in this area prior to 1840, this timeline suggests that all three privy shaft types were in use within the first 20 years of the community, but that prior to 1860, barrels and boxes were being abandoned more readily. By 1879, 92% of the barrel-type shafts encountered during excavations on the two sites had been abandoned (Table 1). By contrast, only 55% of the box-type shafts and 17% of brick-lined shafts had been abandoned by that date. These findings seem to suggest that barrel shafts had been principally in use during the period prior to 1879 and were less commonly employed after this point in history. By 1870, the overwhelming majority of brick-lined shafts still had yet to be abandoned, suggesting that they were still in use or had not yet been built (and as a result, not yet abandoned) by this date. However, by this same time, just over half of the box shafts encountered had been abandoned. By the end of the 1890s, 80% of the box shafts had been abandoned, which climbed to 90% by the early 1900s. In the 1890s, only 35% of brick shafts had been abandoned, suggesting that 65% of that type were still in use. By 1909, 70% of brick-lined shafts had been abandoned, with a further 26% being abandoned in the following decade. It was not until 1920, however, that all brick-lined shafts had been abandoned. This rapid spike in abandonment in brick-lined shafts between 1900 and approximately 1915 coincides nicely with the introduction of the municipal sewer to the area between 1902 and 1920. ⁹ It seems the adoption of sewer connections led to the mass abandonment of sanitary shaft features in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Year
		1840-49	1850-59	1860-69	1870-79	1880-89	1890-99	1900-09	1910-19	1920
Shaft Type	Barrel	25%	58%	67%	92%	92%	100%	100%	100%	100%
	Box	15%	20%	40%	55%	60%	80%	90%	100%	100%
	Composite	0%	0%	25%	50%	50%	50%	100%	100%	100%
	Brick	9%	9%	9%	17%	17%	35%	70%	96%	100%

Table 1: Percentage of Feature Shaft Types Abandoned by Points in Time

Table 1 helps illustrate the relationship between privy subtype and time for the Port Richmond neighborhood. Using the threshold of 66.6% (two-thirds of the total shafts of a type being abandoned) as an indicator that a style had reached a point of waning popularity, archaeologists can make some assertions based on the data. Knowing that settlement in this area of Port Richmond began circa 1840, archaeologists can state that, based on available data, barrel-type shafts were most commonly employed in the Port Richmond neighborhood during the period of 1840–1880. Box shafts did not near the 66.6% threshold of abandonment until the 1890s. As such, it can be presumed that this shaft subtype was in use between 1840 and 1900. As there is a paucity of dating information for the construction of boxes, it is not possible to say with certainty whether this shaft subtype became more popular following the abandonment of barrel-type shafts or whether the two types co-occurred and boxes simply lasted longer. A presumption of sequence can be made for parcels where the two types co-occur, and the abandonment date of the box type postdates that of the barrel. In such cases, the barrel-type shafts can be reasonably supposed to have been the initial phase of privy on the site, which was then supplanted by a box-type shaft following the abandonment of the barrel.

Brick shafts reached their abandonment threshold in 1900–1909 and a nearly 96% abandonment rate by 1915, a range that corresponds with the introduction of the municipal sewer to this part of the neighborhood between 1902 and 1920. This data suggests that the brick-lined shaft feature was often the last to be abandoned, and that such abandonment was likely the result of the transition to sewer use. Indeed, the substantial deposits of coal ash fills found in many such features may be examples of the “clean fills” mandated by legislation concerning privy abandonment in effect during the early twentieth century. ¹⁰ However, when considering the use life of such features, we again encounter the issue of having no good frame of reference for their earliest construction. Their sturdy construction could afford them a substantially longer use life. Many parcels, especially along Richmond and Cambria/William Streets, possessed only a single privy, which was brick lined. Three such features in the southwest corner of the Somerset–Cambria Site were not developed until the period between 1862 and 1875,¹¹ some 30 years after other properties nearby had been developed. Such shafts remained in use from the period of initial settlement to the introduction of a sewer system in the early twentieth century, displaying a use life of up to 40 years. Similarly, along the southwest corner of the Cambria–Ann Site, a single developer built a series of row homes in 1851 that feature a string of planned brick privies designed to be shared between two neighboring lots.¹² These large shared privies appear to have been in operation from the properties’ development in 1851 until they were connected to the municipal sewer in the early twentieth century. In the remainder of cases, brick shafts occurred on lots exhibiting a string of box and barrel features, suggesting they were part of a sequence, not indicators of continued uninterrupted use. Based on this understanding, it would appear that in some cases, brick shafts were the only privy type on a property for a duration of approximately 45 years from 1870–1915. Some brick-lined shafts may have been in use even longer, possibly up to 55 years. In cases where brick-lined shafts are observed in association with other shaft features on a parcel, they are presumed to operate as part of a sanitation development sequence. In such cases, brick shafts are typically interpreted as having been constructed following the abandonment of box or barrel features in the period between 1875 and 1890.

While there are certainly exceptions to the observed trends, the relative chronology of sanitation technology in Port Richmond followed a pattern of barrel to box to brick lined, ending with connection to the municipal sewer. Areas of the neighborhood developing in the last quarter of the nineteenth century frequently jumped right to the brick-lined shaft, without showing a progression through the other types. Conversely, some areas of domestic occupation seemed to continue using boxes and never transitioned to brick shafts, likely due to the expense. Despite these deviations, which are explored further below, what can be seen by this examination is a generalized trend in the development of the sanitation infrastructure of the neighborhood. The change in feature subtype over time can be seen as a microcosm of the neighborhood’s development overall, mirroring the gradual development of the neighborhood into a more stable area. In the early settlement period of the 1840s and 1850s, barrels predominated because they were cheap, effective, and easy to install—a solid choice to help build up infrastructure in a new area, especially one with an uncertain future. As settlement increased, more investment in the form of boxes grew in popularity, replacing the cheap and quick solution with a more labor-intensive option. Finally, as the community became more established during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, investment in durable infrastructure became the norm for both older structures and new construction, leading to the increased use of brick shafts either as privies or cesspits. Brick shafts eventually gave way to sewers as the neighborhood came to rely on municipal utilities in the early twentieth century.

These observations and this analytical framework allow archaeologists the opportunity to make predictions in Port Richmond about an encountered shaft’s age of abandonment based on its shaft subtype. For instance, based on the data in Table 1, if archaeologists encounter a barrel-type shaft while digging in Port Richmond, they can hypothesize that there is a 92% chance it was in use prior to 1880, with a 58% chance that it was in use prior to 1860. Similarly, if archaeologists were to encounter a brick-lined shaft, they can hypothesize that it was likely the last phase of sanitation infrastructure installed on that parcel before connection to the sewer precipitated its abandonment in the early twentieth century. Such hypotheses provide a framework for future archaeological research in the Port Richmond neighborhood.

Privy Shaft Discussions

While we have discussed the chronology and material types employed to create privy shafts, these factors are only half of the story. Another major consideration relative to these types of features is their size and volume. Understanding a shaft’s volume is key to addressing the efficacy of the technology and offers an insight into the motivations of those constructing such shafts and their decision process, allowing a further understanding of the above-discussed patterns. Privy shafts are essentially containers, and one of the most important aspects of a container is its volume. While shaft dimensions in 2D are easy to ascribe based on the footprints of the shafts in the ground, their depth is often much more difficult to assess accurately. In the areas sampled in Port Richmond, the construction of the I-95 highway during the mid–twentieth century led to substantial truncation of the soil column in many areas of the neighborhood. Initially, shaft features were cut through the natural soil column into subsoil to achieve their final depth. However, later soil truncation has in many cases left only a remnant portion of the shafts cut into subsoil, with no really effective way of gauging the degree of soil loss and, therefore, how much of the shaft is missing in that location. The lack of reliable or comparable depth information makes it unsuitable to directly compare the volume of encountered shaft features in a quantitative manner. While it may not have been possible to always fix an accurate depth for the shaft of a privy vault during its use life within a site, it was still possible to determine relative depths by comparing adjacent features—as they presumably received a similar degree of truncation—and thus establish general trends.

The average depth of surviving structure for brick-lined shafts was about 6.5 feet, while barrels and box shafts averaged 3.7 feet. In general, this suggests a trend in which brick-lined shafts were deeper than their barrel or wooden box counterparts. That is not to say that there were not deep incarnations of each type, these are merely averages, but the general depth trend does seem to hold when compared to data about privy depths gleaned from the Privy Well Measurer’s Book of 1852–1854. ¹³ This historical document is a detailed record of privies cleaned between 1852 and 1854 and includes the dimensions, construction material, and depth of each shaft. Using data from the Port Richmond neighborhood, we find that at the time of their cleaning, barrel privies (referred to in the book as “Hogsheads”) were all about 4 feet deep—unsurprising, as a hogshead is a 3-foot-diameter cask with an approximate height of 48 inches or 4 feet. Looking at the Cambria–Ann and Somerset–Cambria feature data, we find that the majority of barrel features similarly fit this description. Exceptions to the majority include a double-stacked barrel (CA-12) and three other privies in which larger diameter casks were employed. Overall, however, barrel privies seem to have typically only extended into the ground to the depth of their cask(s) height, which was relatively shallow. The diameter of barrel shafts was necessarily constrained by the dimension of the barrels employed.

Unlike barrels, box and brick-lined shafts were purpose-built containers that could be constructed deeper to hold a greater volume. The Port Richmond sample from the Privy Well Measurer’s Book of 1852–1854 averages about 7.5 feet in depth for box privies. As on average only about 3.7 feet of such features survive archaeologically in the excavated sites, that contrast provides some general idea as to the depth of truncation in some areas of the excavated sites. By contrast, the Privy Well Measurer’s Book records an average depth of round brick-lined privies at 10.5 feet, whereas archaeological excavators typically encountered only about 6.5 feet of surviving brick-lined shafts due to truncation. ¹⁴

These estimates of volume allow archaeologists to provide some insight into why we are seeing a general barrel-to-box-to-brick-lined progression within the Port Richmond shaft chronology. While a single hogshead cask privy could hold a maximum of 145 gallons before needing to be emptied, an average 5-foot-diameter brick-lined privy that was just 9.5 feet deep could hold nearly 1,400 gallons before being wholly full—nearly 10 times the volume. A square 5-foot box privy of similar depth could hold a comparable amount of material, meaning that brick and box privies could go longer between cleaning and that the distance between the effluent material and the user was greatly increased, which helped to reduce smell. While theoretically boxes could approach the same level of efficiency as brick-lined shafts, most such features recorded in the records do not seem to have been constructed to the same kind of depth as their brick counterparts. While brick-lined privies that averaged 4.5–5.5 feet in diameter seem to have gone deeper to achieve a greater capacity, box privies often went wider instead of deeper. This may be a result of the fact that the wood lining of box privies would eventually decay and undermine the integrity of the shaft. Deeper box shafts were therefore perhaps not a safe long-term solution, whereas brick shafts, being masonry, would not decay in the ground and could go deeper without fear of structural defects. This wider not deeper trend for box privies meant that to achieve the same storage volume as a brick-lined shaft, more of the yard area needed to be devoted to the privy structure. This situation was not ideal in an urban environment, where space was at a premium.  

Given that privy shafts are effectively tanks intended to hold the greatest volume of material possible, it is unsurprising that brick shafts became increasingly popular during the nineteenth century. They offered the best storage volume, while having the benefit of being made of a stable durable material that would not rot, unlike boxes and barrels. The small volume of barrels relative to their counterparts seemingly contributed to their demise, especially in the wake of the numerous cholera outbreaks in the mid–nineteenth century and the intensification of public-health efforts. Early on, it is possible that some residents compensated for the lack of adequate storage volume by creating several shallower box or barrel privies to provide a comparable volume to what could be achieved in a brick privy. Contemporary shafts like box privies SC-28, SC-36, and SC-37 seem to have served as a privy block for 2830 Richmond during its domestic occupation, but once it became a mixed-use property around 1866, they were all abandoned in favor of a single deep 4.5-diameter privy. If this brick-lined shaft had an original depth of around 10 feet prior to truncation, it would have had a capacity of over 2,600 gallons, which was just 200 gallons less than all three box privies combined, provided they had an initial depth pre-truncation of about 8 feet. Removing these structures from the back lot would have cleaned up the yard and provided more area for commercial or leisure activities. Some developers or landowners took the desire for efficiency a step further and considered privy architecture when constructing their income properties. For instance, the developer who built the string of mixed-use structures along the southwest corner of the Cambria–Ann Site laid out the privies so that every other property shared a single large-diameter brick-lined privy vault. This finding helps account for the larger-diameter shafts seen in features like 24, 57, and GIS078—and likely Feature 3 of the Somerset–Cambria Site. These shared shafts were deliberately built to serve multiple properties at once and were therefore of larger diameter. Sharing such facilities between lots meant that the area such infrastructure consumed in the back lot of any particular property could be reduced, freeing up more space for commercial or residential activities.

The examination of the physical attributes of privy shafts in Port Richmond helps place the chronological and shaft subtype trends archaeologists observed into the framework of the development of technological complexity, personal agency, and a movement toward sanitation efficiency.

Shaft Placement and Spatial Trends

Our discussion up until this point has centered upon determining when a privy was in use and what shaft subtypes were preferred during particular times. Another useful question for archaeologists is in regard to where shaft features occur on a historical parcel. Identifying if there is a pattern to the spatial distribution of shafts within a property parcel is key in understanding how space was used in the past, and in predicting where other similar features may occur on similar properties. This question has long been difficult to address. Long experience has suggested that the very back of a lot is the preferred location for sanitary features. Testing this supposition in a specific case, however, is fully reliant upon the ability to estimate what a back lot included at a given point in time, which is often a difficult prospect. Furthermore, maps and documentary sources like deeds often focus on or depict legal boundaries, which can be drastically different from the boundaries a property’s occupants observed in reality.

Philadelphia is blessed with a robust collection of historical maps and plats detailing property boundaries and structures, including road designs, insurance maps, sewer lines, and other survey plans. ¹⁵ Understanding the relationship of a privy to a parcel requires understanding the real-world location and boundaries of the back lot, which is often not the focus of a survey. Many earlier maps, like the 1862 Smedley and the 1875 Hopkins maps, are most concerned with the layout of streets and the locations of buildings, not the back lots or even fence lines within a city block. ¹⁶ Insurance maps similarly are more focused on the structures on a property which they are insuring, not the dimensions of a yard. As a result, most map series of the city seem to follow legal property boundaries quite closely. This tendency can become problematic when dealing with properties or groups of properties owned by the same landowner but occupied by tenants. While the land might legally belong to two equal lots, the landowner might choose to divide up and rent out the property in any number of ways that do not get reflected in the deeds or even in some maps, depending on their purpose and focus.

One site where such issues are on full display is Cambria–Ann, home to a substantial number of shaft features of all three subtypes. Using legal property boundaries, as specified in deeds, places a number of shaft features into locations floating in the middle of the backyards along Melvale Street properties. This discovery seems to fly in the face of accepted wisdom about shaft locations. Examination of these locations on the 1875 Hopkins map (which reflects legal property boundaries) and the later 1919 Sanborn maps seems to offer little explanation for this mid-parcel placement. ¹⁷ While the Smedley map of 1862 shows a structure in the back lot behind 1612 and 1614 Melvale where many of the shafts appear to have been constructed along the perimeter of the structure, suggesting that they were established while the building was a part of the built environment, it does not explain other mid-back-lot shafts on Melvale. ¹⁸ The 1884 Hexamer map of the site seems to have taken care to follow fence lines as they were on the ground, not the legal property boundaries. The results are revealing. (It must be stated that multiple lots were often owned by the same landowner; in such situations, the parcel divisions on paper often do not reflect the lived experience of the tenants on the lots.) This 1884 map shows that, unlike the legal property boundaries depicted on several of the earlier and later map series, the fence lines for the back lots in 1884 were actually much closer to Melvale Street on properties like 1606, 1612, and 1614. ¹⁹ The privies on these properties that appeared to be floating in the middle of back lots based on later 1919 mapping line up all along the back edge of the properties when overlaid on the 1884 map, as conventional wisdom would expect.

With this legal-versus-lived-reality property discrepancy accounted for by the 1884 Hexamer map, another trend became apparent in Cambria–Ann—namely, that the brick shafts appeared to be set a similar distance from the back fence lines on many of the properties. All of the brick shafts along Cambria are set up south of the property lines by about 15 feet and are the only features of their type on their lots. This appears to be the case for Features 25, 86, 3, and 1, all of which appear to be about 7–10 feet from the real-world property line. These properties nearly all front on Cambria and Richmond Streets and, by 1884, were mixed-use commercial and residential properties. In general, the trend within the site seems to be that brick shafts, offset from the back property lines, are to be found in mixed-use commercial/residential properties (typically of brick construction), and that such properties will have only one such sanitary feature on the parcel. By contrast, the purely domestic residences (often of frame construction) running along Melvale were characterized by the absence of brick-lined shafts and the presence of multiple abandoned shaft features of the barrel and box type. ²⁰

Looking at the Somerset–Cambria Site, we find that the sanitary features here too followed the conventional wisdom, being principally aligned along the back property lines of the majority of the parcels. At this site, however, the relationship between commercial/residential properties and a single shaft feature seems to differ from the pattern seen at the Cambria–Ann Site. The parcels developed between 1860 and 1875 in the southern end of the block followed the trend of singular brick privies. However, parcels developed in the first half of the nineteenth century in the middle of the block on Richmond Street exhibited box privies as well as brick shafts, suggesting that parcels with a longer period of development are apt to show more stages of sanitation technology. Additionally, the transition from box to brick-lined privies on such parcels may reflect changing use from purely domestic occupation during the 1870s–1880s to mixed commercial/residential use thereafter. Overall, the spatial placement of sanitary features observed at the Somerset–Cambria Site seems to support the expectation of the placement of sanitary features along the back fence line of a parcel. Temporally, brick-lined shafts occurred in isolation in areas of later development; earlier developed properties featured a few box or barrel shafts, but then transitioned to brick-lined shafts, with most brick-lined shafts being abandoned around the first decade of the twentieth century. ²¹

The results from these two sites, which contain the majority of the shaft features excavated in Port Richmond, suggest several trends. The first is the seeming confirmation of the commonly held belief that sanitary features will likely manifest along the back property line of a parcel. This observation requires the caveat that the real-world property line is the one specified, not the legal property line—a key distinction, especially in areas where lots fronting on two streets were owned by the same landowner. In such situations, landowners may have divided up the usable land area for their tenants in a manner not consistent with the legal lot boundary, as seen at the Cambria–Ann Site. While this observation is generally true, it must also be noted that brick-lined shaft features were likely to be set closer to a dwelling/structure than box or barrel shafts, and cannot always be found along the back property line, occurring at an offset of as much as 20 feet, the span of a parcel allowing. The principal difference between the feature placement on the two sites seems to be that on Cambria–Ann, brick-lined shafts were more offset from the back lot line than on Somerset–Cambria, where they held to the back property line along with the boxes and barrels. This offset is most pronounced in portions of the neighborhood that developed after the 1860s. Such offsets may be the result of increased adherence to regulation and concern for public health. Ordinances governing placement of privies throughout most of the city specified that privies could not be dug within 2 feet of a neighbor’s property line, nor within 100 feet of their water source. Ordinances like this were in place for Kensington as early as 1821. ²² Failure to comply could mean a fine of up to $100 and the forced abandonment of the shaft at the owner’s expense. The perceived inward movement of such shafts away from property lines and closer to dwellings/structures suggests a compliance with these regulations and perhaps even an attempt to be overly cautious in regard to compliance and practicing good health habits. However, similar ordinances also required that the depth of features be limited to 2 feet above the water table, which was almost certainly ignored in the quest for ever-deeper privies. Another possible explanation for such offsets is that other structures (stables or sheds) or gardens which do not survive archaeologically may have occupied the back fence line, pushing shafts forward. With a pipe-fed cesspit, the need to keep the shaft at a distance from the house for issues like smell was less pressing and may be reflected in the placement of some shafts closer to dwellings.

A map showing the gradual development of the Cambria–Ann and Somerset–Cambria Sites combined with the timeline of feature abandonment. Note the relationships between the privy shafts and the backyard lines as the parcel boundaries change over time, illustrating the relationships between privy shafts and the structures on a parcel as the area became more developed.

Shaft Feature Summary

Examination of the physical and spatial attributes of shaft features and their temporal roles within the Port Richmond neighborhood reveals a number of trends and conclusions that help us understand people’s lives. The chronology of shaft abandonment shows a general progression from barrel to box to brick-lined shafts, with substantial temporal overlap between boxes and barrels, before the introduction of the municipal sewer changed the available sanitation technology. Privies were generally situated along the real-world back fence lines, though in some situations, brick shafts were offset slightly. Areas of the neighborhood that developed post-1860 almost always employed a long-serving brick-lined shaft, whereas earlier developed properties showed greater variety in shaft subtype before adopting the brick-lined shaft form. Examining the structure and characteristics of each privy subtype helped to clarify why most of the parcels within the neighborhood came to favor and employ brick-lined shafts, as they were the most durable and greatest capacity option available. Despite becoming the preferred form of privy in the late nineteenth century, brick-lined shafts were nearly all abandoned by the first decade of the twentieth century when the municipal sewer became available. 

In addition to temporally related technology changes, there seems to be a correspondence between the functional use of a property and the type of sanitary facilities installed. Areas that remained largely domestic and lower income throughout the nineteenth century saw the continuing use of box and some barrel shafts, while commercial/residential properties and more affluent domestic dwellings transitioned entirely to brick-lined shafts. In locations where brick-lined shafts were not employed at all, the properties were purely domestic lots where concerns about workspace were presumably not pressing and the desire to keep the cost of privy construction down was of greater concern than the size of a privy’s footprint.

Macrobotanical Analysis and Historical Privies 

Archaeologically recovered plant material (archaeobotanicals) collected from the Port Richmond excavations consist primarily of macrobotanicals—seeds, charcoal, and plant parts visible to the naked eye or with a low-powered microscope. The vast majority of the macrobotanical assemblage was recovered from privies via soil samples, allowing for an in-depth look at how the neighborhood accessed food and impacted their surrounding environment. The assemblage also includes larger fruit pits, seeds, and nutshells that were occasionally recovered with the general artifact assemblage during the screening process. For more information on the methodology utilized during the archaeobotanical analysis, click here.

Analysis of the samples collected from the Port Richmond excavations identified a mix of domesticated plant taxa growing in the surrounding environment. The taxa were separated into six analytical categories based on how they were likely used and/or deposited into the privy: fruits and vegetables, nuts, condiments and herbs, medicinal and household plants, weedy herbs and grasses, and other. Some of the taxa had multiple uses, but they were placed in the category that best represents their primary use within the urban nineteenth-century context of the privy. A complete list of the plants identified from the Port Richmond assemblage and their interpretations can be found here(INSERT ME). The majority of the recovered plant material was food-related and included fruits and vegetables that may have been grown locally in the surrounding Delaware Valley region, such as grapes, cherries, tomatoes, peaches, raspberry/blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and elderberries. Other identified food taxa, such as coffee and figs, were likely imported from out of state and overseas. Plants that may have been used as flavoring agents and herbs—such as thyme, mustard, and poppy—were identified as well. The greater Port Richmond macrobotanical assemblage also contains plants cultivated as decoration, including flowers and trees, and weedy plants that were likely growing in the surrounding environment.  

Various types of deposits were identified during excavation of the Port Richmond neighborhood privy shaft features, all of which contained a variety of plant types and botanical assemblages. Primary privy-use deposits made up of nightsoil were typically the richest in plant material. Botanical assemblages from primary privy-use deposits are characterized by high counts and densities of food-related seeds, with small fruit and vegetable seeds such as figs, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, strawberries, and tomatoes likely deposited into the privy in human feces. Larger fruit pits, including cherry and peach pits, were more likely to have been deposited in the privy as household trash or kitchen scraps while the privy was in use, although depositing domestic trash in a household privy was often illegal. Environmental taxa recovered from primary deposits were typically the result of natural seed rain or were carried in on clothing, shoes, or animals. High densities of weedy taxa within primary deposits may be the result of yard cleaning while the privy was in use.  

Secondary deposits relating to household clean-out and fill events often contained a mixture of domestic artifacts, redeposited privy fill, and redeposited matrix sourced from the surrounding environment or off site. Botanical assemblages associated with secondary deposits often contained low densities of seeds overall and a higher ratio of environmental taxa compared to food-related taxa. Weedy taxa within secondary fill deposits may have resulted from yard cleaning events, natural seed rain deposited while the feature was left open, or seeds and plant parts mixed in with fill sourced from the surrounding yard or off site. The surrounding soil matrix and deposition rate can often inform how the environmental taxa accumulated within the feature. Food-related taxa identified in secondary deposits may have resulted from redeposited primary privy deposits or fill deposits mixing with nightsoil left in the privy after clean-out events.  

Oftentimes specific plant uses can be varied and ambiguous, and comparing the archaeobotanical assemblage to the neighborhood’s general artifact assemblage is particularly helpful in interpreting the role specific taxa played in the historical record. Many of the fruit taxa recovered could have been eaten fresh, canned or preserved, or cooked into baked items and sauces. The presence of specific vessels relating to each of those uses displays the wide variety of ways that urban residents prepared and consumed food, which extended to plant cultivation and display as well. A handful of taxa have been identified that may have been cultivated and/or displayed as decoration, including dayflower, poppy, and eggplant. But all three taxa have alternative purposes: the eggplant may result from vegetable consumption, the poppy seeds may result from baked goods, and dayflower was a weed growing nearby. Many of the herbs identified in the archaeobotanical assemblage may have been grown in kitchen gardens but could have also been purchased or gathered nearby. The presence of vessels used to cultivate and display plants indicates behaviors that not only contextualize the presence of decorative plants, but also indicate self-reliance through growing plants for health and nourishment purposes.  

Archaeological Interpretations of the Port Richmond Assemblage

The discussion of archaeological interpretations for Port Richmond is organized into a discussion by thematic topic according to the research questions that the sites in the neighborhood were best suited to address. The following discussions center on aspects of daily life in Port Richmond that pertained to topics like foodways, alcohol consumption, health and wellness, the urban environment, the lives and experiences of women and children, and manifestations of socioeconomic status.

The concept of foodways has been explored through a number of disciplines, including anthropology, folklore, archaeology, sociology, history, American studies, nutrition, popular culture, public health, ethnography, education, medicine, business administration, and psychology. Research focusing on foodways from these different academic perspectives has resulted in a variety of definitions for the term and a range of methods for its study. Those from anthropology, archaeology, and folklore will be of most relevance here.

Historian and folklorist Jay Anderson derived a useful definition of foodways in the early 1970s:

Foodways, most importantly for archaeologists, also includes where food refuse and all other food-related items are eventually discarded. The archaeological remains we work with are simply one step in the process that, as a whole, comprises the foodways of a given group of people in a specific time and place. The more we can learn about the processes of food production, consumption, and discard, the better prepared we will be to talk about the functions and meanings of food in both the past and present. Research on foodways emphasizes the connection between food behaviors and the people themselves—that is, the meaning(s) of these foodways practices.

According to Patricia Harris, David Lyon, and Sue McLaughlin, foodways encompass “everything about eating including what we consume, how we acquire it, who prepares it and who’s at the table” and amount to “a form of communication rich with meaning. Our attitudes, practices and rituals around food are a window onto our most basic beliefs about the world and ourselves.”²⁵ Investigating the progression of the creation, consumption, and discard of foodstuffs allows researchers to gain insight into not only the food system and the foods themselves, but also the entire cultural system, since food is inevitably intertwined with nearly all (if not all) aspects of a given society. Herein lies the true advantage of a foodways perspective. Because of the intimate nature of food, how it shapes our daily existence, and literally becomes a part of who we are as we consume it, research centered on foodways has the potential to reveal a great deal about the people we study in their given context. ²⁶

Another important aspect of an understanding of foodways is that the food habits of any individual or group are defined not only by their cultural milieu or social environment, but also by the available foodstuffs on the landscape, both those that people can produce and those they can acquire through other means (markets, shops, hunting, trading, etc.). These available foodstuffs create and define what is here referred to as the food landscape.

Research on foodways relies on close examination of food habits and/or culinary practices as the dataset through which deeper cultural practices and meanings are revealed. As McIntosh has noted, the “standardized body of food behaviors become the food habits of the group. Originally serving to guide members of the group toward making ideal food choices, the sharing of common food habits ultimately becomes a mechanism for expressing group identity and/or maintaining group boundaries.” ²⁷ Food habits or culinary practices not only serve to define the group with which they are associated but also can be used to delineate people considered to be outside of that group.

The role of foodways in defining identity, both from the inside out and the outside in, has been much discussed in anthropology specifically, but other fields as well. Immigrants, for example, frequently hold steadfastly to their culinary traditions, often portrayed as the last vestiges of their cultural identities, and define themselves not only through their own behaviors, but also through how their culinary habits are different from others around them. Foodways, thus, are both reflective and reflexive. Foodways (and other culinary terms associated with them) represent a spectrum or progression of actions that ultimately both feed people and serve to define who they are, what they do, and how they see themselves. ²⁸

Philadelphia Foodways

The cuisine of Philadelphia has been a topic of consideration for centuries. The viewpoint almost universally presented consists of a discussion (or sometimes even simply a list) of the iconic foods associated with the city, from the pepperpot soups available starting in the colonial period, up to the cheesesteaks of today. This perspective has its place, since it helps to define the character of the city through and by its inhabitants’ food choices, while also forging connections between food and place. Just as Boston is known for its baked beans and Chicago and New York are known for their pizzas, Philadelphia is recognized for its cheesesteaks and even its scrapple. A focus on key, often unique, dishes associated with Philadelphia has prevailed in discussions of the city’s food, starting with the diaries and accounts of the European travelers who visited the city in its early years, right up to the present day. ²⁹

The foods that are iconic of Philadelphia cuisine have come, over time, to represent the foodways of the city itself. Though these foods are not always part of the daily diet of Philadelphians, they still convey important information about the city’s cuisine and foodways. These standout foodstuffs help to paint an evocative picture of the city’s food preferences. ³⁰

The fact that Philadelphia was such an important urban center in the past meant that it developed its own unique culinary style. A number of factors greatly influenced this style, including (1) the various ethnic and religious groups that immigrated to the area; (2) the available foodstuffs, both those produced locally and those acquired through trade; and (3) the urban system of food distribution—i.e., the markets and shops. ³¹

Food in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Some major changes occurred between the nineteenth- and twentieth-century food scenes in American urban settings. Urban shoppers shifted away from markets and towards retail shops for their daily food needs. Restaurant options expanded with places serving hot lunches to workers, locations for travelers and tourists outside their hotels, boardinghouses, and social centers for immigrants. This was just the beginning of the burgeoning restaurant scene. By the end of the nineteenth century, nearly everyone could afford to participate in some form of public dining in urban centers. Immigrant populations had an increasing influence on urban foodways, and the food system became increasingly industrialized and centralized. ³²

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, food was the largest item of a household budget for the American working class. About half of every dollar earned went toward food. The poorer you were, the larger the percentage of your income you likely spent on food. ³³

As Katherine Leonard Turner describes, working-class individuals relied heavily on yeast-based breads, including “wheat or sourdough bread or puffy, white American bakery loaves, crusty Italian bread, rye, pumpernickel, or black bread from Eastern European bakeries, or bagel and bialys from Jewish shops.” ³⁴ These breads were often served with butter, jam, and/or sweetened condensed milk and were eaten with every meal, though sometimes as a meal itself with tea or milk. ³⁵

One highlight for immigrants to America was the increased affordability of meat and, therefore, more regular appearance of it on their tables. Beefsteak was the most desirable cut of meat, but people ate meat in many forms, including pork chops, slow-cooked joints, sausages, and bacon. Chicken was a food typically reserved for special occasions for the working class; for the middle class, it was often a Sunday supper food. ³⁶

The most popular or common vegetables on working-class tables were cabbages, onions, and potatoes. Seasonal availability primarily dictated the consumption of other vegetables and fruits, though this did shift after the introduction of glass mason jars in the 1870s made home canning affordable and available. Tomatoes, peas, lettuces, celery, squashes, artichokes, broccoli, asparagus, and other fresh vegetables became available in markets in the latter part of the nineteenth century. After 1900, some working-class people could afford canned vegetables such as tomatoes, peas, and peaches to add some interest to their normally monotonous winter diet. Those at the lower end of the working-class had diets relatively deplete of vegetables and no fruit. Instead, they ate oatmeal, bread, and potatoes, along with cheap stew meat, possibly with milk or butter, and molasses, because it was cheaper than sugar. ³⁷

Milk became more affordable in the 1880s and 1890s as “milk trains” with refrigerated cars were able to bring fresh milk to cities. Cheese and butter were increasingly made in factories rather than on farms. These changes, plus the introduction of refrigeration for easier preservation, meant that these dairy products were both less expensive and available throughout more of the year. ³⁸

Coastal cities or cities on waterways, like Philadelphia, had ready access to seafood. Common seafood varieties available to consumers included shad, salmon, sturgeon, halibut, mackerel, cod, trout, lobster, clams, and oysters. Oysters were particularly popular, with a whole industry developing around them including oyster cellars, oyster stands, and oyster markets. ³⁹

Immigrants to America generally felt that they were eating like royalty, in relation to what they had in Europe. They consumed at least 10–15% more “food energy” than their former countrymen and sometimes experienced more than a 35% increase. ⁴⁰

General European American Diet

The general eating habits of European Americans had much in common around 1900. Robert Dirks used food consumption or dietary studies to examine which foods appeared in households from different immigrant backgrounds in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ⁴¹ Through comparing and contrasting these records, he was able to see both similarities and distinct differences between the foodways of the various groups. This data allowed him to gain a greater understanding of the specific foods people historically ate.

The following is a table of foods commonly found in European American diets around 1900 (Table 2). “Primary Core in All” indicates that these foodstuffs appeared in and were central (core) to nearly all of the different ethnic groups Dirks explored in his research. “Primary Core in Most” indicates that these foods were central to the diets of most of these groups. “Core in Most” means that the foods were central to the diets of some immigrant communities. And “Included in Most” indicates that most groups ate the foods listed, even though these foods were not the main parts of their diets.

Table 2: Foodstuffs by Frequency in European American Diets⁴²

	Meat & Dairy	Grains & Dried Legumes	Fats, Oils, Sugars, & Starches	Roasts & Tubers	Other Vegetables	Fruits & Misc.
Primary Core in All	fresh beef eggs milk		sugar	potato onion
Primary Core in Most	veal fresh pork fresh fish	wheat flour wheat bread	butter lard		cabbage
Core in Most	ham cheese	oats rye bread cake beans			tomato	apple
Included in Most	beef liver bologna pork sausage bacon chicken mutton sardines	rice barley roll cracker pie beef	suet cocoa	carrot turnip	cucumber	banana orange lemon prune fruit jelly

Standard foods of the American diet in the late nineteenth century included fresh beef, lard, eggs, butter, milk, cheese, wheat flour, granulated sugar, and potatoes. Foods being served on tables included forced and pressed meats, fresh fish, clams, cracked wheat, corn and oatmeal mush, brown bread, baked beans, corn chowder, boiled hominy, succotash, and Indian pudding. ⁴³

People in the middle class consumed a large variety of vegetables and fruits. Cabbage and lettuce were available throughout the winter months. After the Civil War, farmers in the South began growing salad greens and other vegetables for northern markets. By the end of the nineteenth century, northern cities were being shipped cauliflower, cucumber, eggplant, radish, spinach, and onions from the South. Tomatoes began appearing for sale, both from the South and local hothouses. California was shipping oranges, raisins, table grapes, apples, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, figs, and olives to the East Coast by the turn of the century. Steamships made bananas available to the East Coast most of the year, so oranges and bananas became popular alternatives to apples in the winter months. ⁴⁴

Foodways of German Immigrants

Between 1840 and 1880, the majority of American immigrants came from the German states. Most of these German immigrants were peasant farmers. ⁴⁵

Wheat bread and potatoes were the bulk of the German American immigrant diet. Rye bread, cake, rice, and beans all played supporting roles. Although German Americans ate fewer animal products than other immigrant groups, they nonetheless consumed fresh beef, pork, eggs, and milk regularly. Their preferred cuts of beef were round steaks and shoulder roasts. Pork chops were the favorite cut of pork. Germans liked condensed milk and aged cheese in the dairy category. They ate less animal protein, but more animal fats than other groups. German Americans ate tomatoes, onions, and cabbage. Sauerkraut, of course, had a place in their menus, but it played second fiddle to fresh greens in the spring and summer. In general, they ate cheaply and spent little on food in comparison to most other ethnic groups. ⁴⁶

German immigrants often took prominent roles in the baking and grocery industries. They also created the American beer industry, opening breweries in cities where they settled. ⁴⁷

Foodways of Irish Immigrants

Irish immigration to America began in the seventeenth century. The Great Famine of the 1840s prompted a real spike in immigration, with well over half a million Irish people coming to the United States by the end of the nineteenth century. ⁴⁸ Irish Americans spent more of their income on food than many other immigrant groups.

Salt beef, or corned beef, was of particular importance in the Irish American diet, though this foodstuff was also found in British, French, Canadian, and German immigrant households. ⁴⁹ Bacon was considered a holiday food on Irish tables and was not particularly popular among other immigrant groups in America. Other popular foods among Irish Americans were mutton, condensed milk, barley, wheat rolls, fruit pies, and soda crackers. Less common but still consumed foodstuffs included dried beef, beef tripe, lamb, salt cod, dairy cream, doughnuts, buns, dried and canned peas, corn starch, and sauerkraut. ⁵⁰

Irish immigrants contributed in important ways to urban foodways as servants in private homes and waiters in public hotels and restaurants. ⁵¹

Foodways of Italian Immigrants

Italian immigration to the United States picked up markedly in the 1860s, peaked at around 1900, and continued in large numbers until World War I. ⁵² These immigrants originated primarily from southern Italy and many worked in the U.S. as manual laborers in mills and mines. Many coalesced in urban centers called “little Italies.”

From household food study data, one characteristic that stood out among Italian immigrant families was their seeming lack of concern about the cost of food. The food costs for Italian American families tended to run well above those of other ethnic groups. Unlike many other ethnic groups, Italian American families spent a large portion of their food income on vegetables and fruits. They also spent money on wine, beer, and other alcoholic beverages, where other immigrant populations did not. ⁵³

Italian Americans were staunchly committed to maintaining their cuisine from the Old World. Commodities such as olive oil that had been cheap in Italy were quite expensive in America, but they continued to purchase it as a central part of their cuisine. They ate local produce but were also known to purchase some of the less common and more expensive items, such as dandelion greens, parsley, and spinach. They believed that paying more for these items was justified because of their higher quality diets in relation to other nationalities. ⁵⁴

Italian Americans did not consume meat and dairy products in large quantities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. What they did consume was primarily in the form of lard and cheese. Most families from southern Italy had been practically vegetarians prior to immigrating to the U.S. because they could not afford meat. Meat and animal fat consumption did rise once they were in the States, but not as much as it did among other ethnic groups. ⁵⁵

Macaroni was a core foodstuff for Italian Americans. Flour pastes and doughs, both boiled and baked, along with a variety of legumes—such as dried beans, lentils, and peas—were all important parts of their diets. The pasta and legumes often ended up together in soups such as minestrone or pasta fagioli. Italian Americans also consumed beef tripe, oysters, salt fish, cornmeal, string beans, and various nuts and olives. Although these foods were not the core of their diets, they were not typically seen in other European American households. Cornmeal was one foodstuff found and used exclusively in Italian American homes for polenta. ⁵⁶

Foodways of Jewish Immigrants

The laws of kashrut likely guided the food choices of many Jewish immigrants to America. When following kashrut, pork and other meats are forbidden, certain ritual procedures must be followed when slaughtering animals, meat is salted to remove the blood, and meat and milk must be served separately. ⁵⁷

Orthodox Jewish households tended to eat less animal meat. Popular Orthodox Jewish foods included “wienerwurst,” chicken, smoked herring, cottage cheese, and sour cream, along with rye bread and apples. Rice, lemons, and raisins also figured prominently. Less common but still important foods included beef suet, radishes, oranges, prunes, and various fruit jellies. Gingerbread, beets, horseradish, pickles, vinegar, and soda water also made infrequent but noteworthy appearances on Jewish plates. ⁵⁸

Liberal or unorthodox Jews were another category of Jewish consumer. They were referred to by researchers Atwater and Bryant as persons who identified as Jewish but did not adhere to strict Judaic dietary rules. ⁵⁹ They ate lots of fish and beef, particularly carp, herring, and salmon. Dried peas, apples, oranges, and prunes were part of the liberal Jewish diet, but not found in the diets of most other European Americans. Chicken, cottage cheese, and barley were core components of the cuisine. Lemons and raisins, popular among Orthodox Jews, were less so with liberal Jews. Also less common, though still part of the liberal Jewish diet, were dried beef, beef sausage, pork sausage, dairy cream, condensed milk, sour cream, aged cheese, and cream cheese, as well as prepared cereals, unleavened bread, prepared noodles, olive oil, beets, radishes, pickles, rhubarb, sauerkraut, wine, prepared soups, and soda water. ⁶⁰

Many Jewish immigrants started food businesses, which were often quite successful. Jews who wanted to keep the laws of kashrut needed kosher butchers, bakers, and other food purveyors. ⁶¹

Technological Developments in the Meat and Poultry Industries

Technological developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—specifically canal and railroad building, the manufacturing of ice, and the creation of refrigerated cars—significantly impacted the national food system and, therefore, urban foodways. These new forms of transportation eased and cheapened the transportation of foodstuffs from rural to urban areas. ⁶²

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Initial growth of the pork market, for example, was driven by the improvement of internal transportation networks after 1815, including roads, canals, and steamboats. ⁶³ Railroads were the next big transportation system development that changed the national foodways system. They emerged in the 1840s and by the 1860s had essentially replaced canals as the primary form of transport for agricultural products. Transporting live animals by rail allowed for them to be fed a steady diet on their trip to market, rather than grazing on whatever was available en route, resulting in more tender and tastier meat at the end of the line. ⁶⁴

Technological developments in food storage, preservation, and processing also greatly impacted urban food habits. The commercial production and storage of ice was of particular importance. Not only were refrigerated railroad cars in use for help with preservation during transport, but commercial ice was also used to help with preserving foods upon their arrival in stores and homes at their destination. Initially, businesses such as breweries, restaurants, markets, and grocery stores primarily used commercial ice. By the mid–nineteenth century, households were also receiving visits from the iceman to help replenish their iceboxes. ⁶⁵

Refrigerated railcars enabled cities in the Midwest to emerge as central processing centers of perishable foods. Chicago, in particular, grew into the nation’s preeminent meatpacking center and would remain so for over a century. ⁶⁶ “Meat barons” Gustavus Swift and Philip Danforth Armour were critical in this transition. Meatpacking factories became more mechanized with the addition of assembly lines for all aspects of slaughtering, processing, and packing. ⁶⁷ By the twentieth century, the meat-processing system in America had been significantly streamlined. These monumental changes to the way food was prepared, distributed, and marketed were concurrent to Port Richmond’s growth from urban periphery to industrial and residential neighborhood.

Plant and Foodways in Port Richmond

The wide array of fruits, vegetables, herbs, condiments, and imported goods indicate the neighborhood residents’ accessibility to local markets and fresh foods. Most of the food-related taxa recovered from the Port Richmond neighborhood are documented as being available in the marketplaces of large eastern cities during the nineteenth century.⁶⁸ Philadelphia’s marketplaces would have contained food items from all over the world, with the majority of fresh produce originating from the Delaware Valley agricultural region. ⁶⁹ Fresh fruits and vegetables such as the berries, cherries, peppers, apples, and tomatoes identified within the assemblage may have been grown in the surrounding region and were available seasonally. Imported goods like figs and nuts would have been sold at the city markets as well. Food items, particularly dry goods like grains, flour, coffee, and tea, could have also been purchased from local grocers. Documentary records indicate a number of grocers occupying the neighborhood, which would have meant that a wide variety of produce and spices would have been available to residents. ⁷⁰ In addition to being purchased as raw ingredients, some of the recovered taxa may have been sold and consumed as prepared foods from street vendors and bakeries. Kitchen gardens may have also been a source for food by supplying residents with fresh herbs and greens. Some of this material is unlikely to show up as seeds; certain vegetables—such as greens, cabbages, carrots, tubers, onions, and some herbs—are harvested prior to producing seeds, and others contain plant material that does not survive the human digestive tract. Nonetheless, it is possible that neighborhood residents harvested many of the fruit, vegetables, and herbs identified during analysis directly from their backyards.

Table 3: Comestible Plant Taxa Identified at the Cambria-Ann and Somerset-Cambria Sites

Category	Taxa	Common Name	Cambria-Ann	Somerset-Cambria
Cereal	Poaceae	Cereal		X
	Triticum aestivum	Bread wheat	X	X
Fruits & Vegetables	Sambucus canadensis	Elderberry	X	X
	Cucumis sp.	Cucumber/Muskmelon	X	X
	Cucurbita sp.	Squash/Pumpkin		X
	Gaylussacia sp.	Huckleberry		X
	Vaccinium macrocarpon	Cranberry	X	X
	Vaccinium sp.	Blueberry	X	X
	Ribes sp.	Currant	X
	Ficus sp.	Fig	X	X
	Morus sp.	Mulberry	X
	Fragaria sp.	Strawberry	X	X
	Malus sp.	Apple	X	X
	Prunus sp.	Cherry	X	X
	Prunus avium	Sweet cherry	X
	Prunus persica	Peach	X	X
	Rubus sp.	Raspberry/Blackberry	X	X
	Capsicum sp.	Pepper	X
	Physalis sp.	Groundcherry	X	X
	Solanum lycopersicum	Tomato	X	X
	Solanum melongena	Eggplant		X
	Vitis sp.	Grape	X	X
Nuts	Juglans regia	English walnut	X
	Prunus dulcis	Almond	X
Condiments & Herbs	Apium graveolens	Celery seed	X	X
	Brassica sp./Brassica nigra	Mustard; Black mustard	X
	Coriandrum sativum	Coriander		X
	Ocimum basilicum	Basil		X
	Papaver sp.	Poppy	X	X
	Sesamum indicum	Sesame	X
	Thymus sp.	Thyme	X
Beverage	Coffea sp.	Coffee		X

With numerous options of where (and how) to purchase foods items, the Port Richmond residents undoubtedly prepared and consumed them in a similarly wide variety of ways. The fruits and vegetables identified during analysis include a variety of taxa that would have been utilized in multiple styles of preparation. Most of the identified taxa are fruits that could be consumed raw or dried, made into preserves, jams, or syrups, or baked into pies and pastries. Many of the recovered fruit taxa, including grapes, elderberries, peaches, and cherries, were used to make spirits as well. ⁷¹ Vegetable taxa were typically served in savory preparations. In addition to being an integral part of main and side dishes for meals, during the mid to late nineteenth century, vegetables were commonly used in salads and pickled, as well as for making sauces and relishes. Herbs and spices like basil, celery seed, coriander, and thyme were used to augment flavors in dishes, and sesame and poppy seeds may have been used as toppings on fresh breads and baked goods. The lone beverage-related taxon identified during analysis, coffee, was one of the most unambiguous taxa within the assemblage. Port Richmond residents would have brewed coffee to consume in the privacy of their homes or to gather socially with friends. Documentary evidence such as period cookbooks and restaurant menus identify the many ways in which comestible plants were incorporated into meals on a daily basis. ⁷²

Food-Related Artifacts

In addition to the macrobotanical assemblage, the neighborhood’s artifact assemblage contains a number of vessels that had specific uses when it came to preparing, serving, and displaying foods. This is not surprising—comestibles made up a significant portion of the recovered archaeobotanical assemblage, and food consumption would not have been a household choice but rather a necessity. Vessels used to prepare, flavor, and display foods were recovered throughout the project area. Objects such as two redware bean pots recovered from the Cambria–Ann Site would have been used to prepare beans and stews (Figure 7). The presence of bean pots is of particular interest because there were no beans or legumes positively identified within the Port Richmond assemblage.

The identification of two glass celery vases similarly illuminates the use of a plant that we would have not otherwise seen archaeobotanically (Figure 8). Celery stalks are consumed before producing seeds and the celery seeds recovered from the neighborhood were likely used as a flavoring agent. Recovered from Feature 18 at the Somerset–Cambria Site, the celery vases would have been a fashionable addition to the table, and both pressed-glass vessels would have been a less-expensive way for middle- and working-class residents to mimic the cut-glass vases seen on upper-class tables.

A cake salver from the Somerset–Cambria Site and compote lid from the Cambria–Ann Site both would have been used to display sweet treats, which may have included a fruit element (Figure 9 and Figure 10). Popular cake recipes from the mid to late nineteenth century often involved the use of lemons, currants, almonds, apples, and strawberries. With the exception of lemon, all of these taxa have been identified within the Port Richmond assemblage. The compote lid may have covered a dish used to serve fruit dishes, nuts, or sweets. Along with a variety of berries and other fruits, several nuts were identified within the Port Richmond assemblage, including English walnut and a probable almond.

Several glass and ceramic berry bowls and fruit bowls were identified within the neighborhood assemblage as well. Such pressed glass bowls would have likely been sold as part of a larger set. While their intended use may have been to hold berries, the term berry bowl was often just a catalog name for the size, and it is quite possible that the vessels were used to hold and display a number of items. Even so, the presence of the bowls compliments the identification of a large number of berry taxa identified during the macrobotanical analysis.

Vessels that contained and displayed plants used to spice and flavor foods on Victorian tables were recovered as well. A relish dish from Feature 18 at the Somerset–Cambria Site would have been used to serve relishes or garnishes, which would have included a variety of fruits and vegetables (Figure 11). Condiment bottles were recovered from various properties in the neighborhood as well, including tomato catsup bottles, barrel mustard bottles, and castors. Both tomato and mustard seeds have been identified in the archaeobotanical assemblage (Figure 12).

Several vessels featured decorative elements with food motifs, including cherries, strawberries, grapes, wheat, and cabbage. The identification of these motifs does not signify the consumption of those particular food items, but does demonstrate that the visual presence of those foods was fashionable. The consumption of the food items displayed as decorative motifs is reflected in contemporary cookbooks and receipts. Some of the foods featured as motifs—such as cherries, strawberries, grapes, and wheat—are represented archaeobotanically as well. Conversely, a candy dish molded into the shape of a cabbage from the Cambria–Ann Site represents a plant not identified in the botanical assemblage, likely due to the vegetable being harvested and consumed prior to producing seeds (Figure 13).

Vessels relating to coffee and tea consumption were also recovered, including an enamelware coffee pot and coffee grinder, coffee/tea mugs, teapots, and numerous teacups and saucers. Both coffee and tea used botanical material as their main ingredient; however, the Port Richmond assemblage only included archaeobotanical evidence of one of the popular beverages—coffee beans. The consumption of both beverages would have taken place in private and social settings, and the quality of the botanical ingredients and material they were served with provide an important indicator of social status.

A patented glass lemon juicer recovered from the Somerset–Cambria Site speaks to the consumption of citrus juice, likely lemonade or a similar refreshing beverage. The lemons needed in order to warrant the use of the juicer would have been imported and readily available in local markets around Philadelphia. Not only does the identification of the juicer speak to the connectivity of the city’s trade networks, but it also has the potential to fill a gap in botanical data—namely, the fact that no citrus seeds were recovered from the Port Richmond archaeobotanical assemblage.

Vessels used to store food items were recovered from both sites, in the form of redware jars, glass canning jars, and milk glass lid liners. The glass jars and lid liners may have been used to preserve and store vegetables and fruits, ensuring access to certain seasonal produce year-round (Figure 14 and Figure 15). Fragmented and complete glass jars and lid liners were identified in 19 different features across the two sites, demonstrating widespread utilization of the vessels to store foods (Table 4). Thirty-four positively identified glass jars and 20 glass lid liners were identified from the two sites. While low counts of glass jars across the two sites (rather than large caches of the vessels) is not a clear indicator of home canning and food preservation or the purchase of industrially canned food goods, the jars and lid liners still hint at the role that food preservation would have played in the diets of the neighborhood’s inhabitants. Canned preserved food would have created stability when produce was not in season, and jars were likely reused numerous times.

Table 4: Canning Jars and Lid Liners from Port Richmond

Site/Feature	Canning Jar	Lid Liner	Total
Cambria-Ann Site	27	8	35
General Collection	11	–	11
01	2	–	2
09	–	1	1
12	1	–	1
20	1	2	3
24	–	1	1
25	4	–	4
57	2	1	3
67	1	1	2
85	1	1	2
86	1	1	2
94	3	–	3
Somerset-Cambria Site	7	12	19
03	–	1	1
05	2	–	2
07	1	1	2
12	–	3	3
18	–	1	1
19	–	1	1
26	1	3	4
27	2	–	2
29	–	1	1
30	1	1	2
Grand Total	34	20	54

Summary of Faunal Material Recovered from Port Richmond

Faunal remains were recovered and analyzed from two of the sites comprising the Port Richmond neighborhood. In total, 17,198 specimens were recovered (Table 5). Of these specimens, 17,033 were deposited in archaeological features with discrete contexts. Though a significant amount of material was recovered from both sites, Cambria–Ann contained almost 50% more specimens than Somerset–Cambria by count, weighing twice as much. As much as anything else, this disparity is likely due to a greater number of shaft features recorded at Cambria—Ann. These features tend to be the most artifact rich. Specimens were recovered across 67 features, but at both sites, only a handful of particularly rich shaft features counted for the vast majority of faunal material. As expected, shaft features accounted for almost all of the faunal remains recovered (Table 6), making up almost 94% of the assemblage, with the remainder comprised of pits, drainage features, and posts. This finding is unsurprising, given the sheer volume encompassed by these shafts, their depth below potentially destructive events, as well as their use history as places for waste disposal.

Context	NISP	% of Total NISP %	Weight (g)	% of Total Weight
Shaft	16,154	93.93%	54,755.587	88.42%
Pit	337	1.96%	2,474,822	4.00%
Drain	144	0.84%	207.32	0.33%
Post	97	0.56%	151.935	0.25%
Other	17,198	2.71%	4,335.87	7.00%
Grand Total	17,198		61,925.534

Table 6: Faunal Material Recovered from Port Richmond by Feature Type

The faunal material recovered in Port Richmond was primarily recovered using two different methodologies: regular recovery during excavation using 0.25-inch mesh and in soil collected and processed using laboratory flotation. While both these methods resulted in the recovery of faunal material, the two assemblages are relatively different in character. While both the screened and floated datasets contain similar amounts of material (9,716 and 7,482 specimens, respectively), the float weighs just over 1% of the screened portion. Not only are the average sizes of specimens vastly different, they are different because of the types of material recovered. While mammal remains are roughly one-third of both assemblages, fish make up less than 5% of the screened material and 33% of the floated material. These fish remains include scales and spines—elements of fish anatomy that occur in large numbers, potentially inflating the amount of material that a single fish might contribute to an assemblage. While these specimens were likely present during regular excavation, they might have been too small to be recovered from the screen.

Not only do the two methodologies differ in what kinds of material are recovered, but they also impact how specifically analysts are able to classify them. In the screened portion of the assemblage, 51% of the specimens were identified more specifically than class. Among the screened material, that portion is only about 1%. This difference was due to both less-specific float identification practices and less diagnostic material in that assemblage. Overall, the float drastically changed the amount of material recovered, though a very small portion of it is useful analytically when addressing the foodways of those living in Port Richmond. However, it was the only instance in which analysts were able to identify a number of taxa, including amphibians, salmon, sturgeon, and a mouse.

Table 7: Faunal Material Recovered from Port Richmond by Class

Class	NISP	% of Total NISP	Weight (g)	% of Total Weight
Amphibian	1	0.01%	0.01	0.00%
Bird	3,135	18.23%	3,870.952	6.25%
Fish	3,966	23.06%	454.813	0.73%
Mammal	9,621	55.94%	57,524.978	92.89%
Reptile	26	0.15%	56.16	0.09%
Unidentified	449	2.61%	18.431	0.03%
Total	17,198		61,925.344

Overall, mammals dominate the assemblage by both the sheer number of specimens recovered and by total weight (Table 7). This difference in representation may point to their dietary importance in Port Richmond, but also likely highlights the unequal impact of taphonomic forces across classes, both during and after deposition. Mammal bones tend to be much larger and more robust than bird or fish bones. In this way, they are more resistant to destructive forces such as burning, trampling, crushing, freeze-thaw cycles, and predation by scavengers—not to mention the damage wrought by butchering, cooking, and consumption. The impacts of these forces are writ on the bones themselves. While only 116 specimens are identified as having general weathering, another 700 bones show evidence of burning across 27 features. Another 394 specimens across 37 features exhibit signs of gnawing. Though most of these signs occur on mammal bones, it can be surmised that historical processes impacting one portion of the assemblage also impacted others. Activities that would have marred robust mammal bones might completely destroy those that were more fragile. In addition to the obviously gnawed specimens, 30 features contained either cats, dogs, or rats, all of which could and likely would have chewed and destroyed the other faunal material. Whether deposited directly in privy contexts or first scattered across a rear lot, the remains would have been subjected to various sources of destruction throughout the sites’ intensive use histories.

This taphonomic destruction would also have had an impact on the number of specimens identifiable more specifically than class. While the vast majority of specimens have been assigned a class, less than 30% of the specimens can be identified beyond whether they belonged to a mammal, bird, fish, reptile, or amphibian. However, these same diagnostic specimens are generally more complete and more massive, accounting for over 70% of the assemblage by weight. Cumulative taphonomic effects could have destroyed the portions of elements (or whole elements themselves) that might allow an analyst to distinguish one species from another.

Many of the specimens identified in the assemblage represent the most common domesticated animals available at the time, though a plurality of different species were present, particularly among fish (Table 8). Across both sites, at least 32 different taxa were recovered, with the potential for more where specific species or subspecies could not be identified (e.g., among turtles or ducks). While most common mammals offer the least dietary diversity of any class with a significant amount of material recovered (amphibians and reptiles were recovered in too small amounts to meaningfully compare and could generally only be identified at a gross level). Only eight different mammals were identified, and of those, it is likely that mice, rats, cats, and dogs would not have meaningfully contributed to the diet. With those taxa removed, only four mammals likely contributed to the foodways of Port Richmond: caprines (sheep and goats), cows, pigs, and rabbits. While fewer individual species of bird were identified, any of them might have been a fixture in the diets of those living in Port Richmond. Fish are the most diverse, with 13 different taxa present. The difference in the overall diversity of food animals present in each class closely mirrors how industrialized and commercialized their acquisition had become and the number of species available at market. Meat for sale at market from mammals (particularly cows and pigs) increasingly became the purview of commercial-scale enterprises at all stages of procurement. While chicken raising and processing also became increasingly standardized and industrialized, the exploitation of wild and alternative bird taxa was significant enough that there was a diversity of options at the market. While fishing and fish-processing could become industrial and commercialized enterprises, they still relied primarily on the seasonally and geographically variable populations of wild fish.

Table 8: Faunal Material Recovered from Port Richmond

Species	NISP	% of Total NISP	Weight (g)	% of Total Weight
Amphibians
Frog/Toad	1	0.01%	0.01	0.00%
Birds
Chicken	1,770	10.29%	2,693.894	4.35%
Duck	73	0.42%	133	0.21%
Goose	63	0.37%	187.45	0.30%
Guinea Fowl	1	0.01%	0.6	0.00%
Pigeon/Dove	31	0.18%	14.84	0.02%
Songbird	8	0.05%	0.63	0.00%
Turkey	70	0.41%	311.23	0.50%
Unid, Bird	511	2.97%	228.86	0.37%
Unid, Large Bird	50	0.29%	75.578	0.12%
Unid, Medium/Large Bird	10	0.06%	13.4	0.02%
Unid, Medium Bird	495	2.88%	206.553	0.33%
Unid, Small/Medium Bird	10	0.06%	1.51	0.00%
Unid, Small Bird	43	0.25%	5.407	0.01%
Fish
Black Sea Bass	41	0.24%	18.4	0.03%
Catfish	54	0.31%	19.306	0.03%
Cod	171	0.99%	153.55	0.25%
Croaker	8	0.05%	15.9	0.03%
Mackerel	8	0.05%	2.09	0.00%
Porgy	12	0.07%	7.28	0.01%
Salmon	1	0.01%	0.2	0.00%
Sea Bass	6	0.03%	3	0.00%
Sea Trout	31	0.18%	16.9	0.03%
Shad	29	0.17%	18.77	0.03%
Silver Porgy	4	0.02%	1.9	0.00%
Striped Bass	15	0.09%	13	0.02%
Sturgeon	1	0.01%	0.019	0.00%
Sucker	1	0.01%	1	0.00%
Unid. Fish	3,574	20.78%	175.178	0.28%
Unid. Large Fish	4	0.02%	2.32	0.00%
Unid. Small Fish	6	0.03%	6	0.01%
Mammals
Caprine	371	2.16%	3,088.08	4.99%
Cat	306	1.78%	441.45	0.71%
Cow	1,161	6.75%	27,667.18	44.68%
Dog	14	0.08%	74.16	0.12%
Mouse	3	0.02%	0.05	0.00%
Pig	708	4.12%	8,964.798	14.48%
Rabbit	25	0.15%	34.6	0.06%
Rat	46	0.27%	20.75	0.03%
Unid. Large Mammal	1,179	6.86%	12,379.92	19.99%
Unid. Mammal	19	0.11%	1.6	0.00%
Unid. Medium Mammal	5,518	32.09%	4,446.496	7.18%
Unid. Medium/Large Mammal	124	0.72%	340.49	0.55%
Unid. Small Mammal	123	0.72%	37.904	0.06%
Unid. Small/Medium Mammal	24	0.14%	27.5	0.04%
Reptiles
Snapping Turtle	9	0.05%	23.6	0.04%
Turtle	17	0.10%	32.56	0.05%
Unidentified
Unid.	449	2.61%	18.431	0.03%
Total	17,198		61,925.344

This relationship, where the commercialization of a taxonomic class of meat (e.g., mammal or bird) results in that classes assemblage being less diverse is reflected in contemporary market guides. This trend toward decreased taxonomic diversity seen in both documentary and Port Richmond data suggests that the phenomena seen in the faunal assemblage is perhaps a reflection of the choices available to consumers. They may have had fewer choices and, as such, diets became less diverse as production of certain meat products like beef and pork became more commercialized. DeVoe’s The Market Assistant commits over 80 pages to the discussion of just 4 species of domesticated mammal and only 22 to another 25 species of wild mammals. ⁷³ By comparison, domesticated poultry are given 12 pages to the 35 dedicated to wild birds, and fish (of which no distinction is made between those harvested in the wild compared to those potentially managed in fishponds) received 120 pages devoted to scores of species. As the production of meat products from certain animals became industrialized, they became easier and cheaper to produce in large quantities. It may have been difficult to supply the market with other taxa, both in quantities sufficient to feed an ever-growing population and at prices that the population could afford. While a diversity of species may not explicitly stand as a proxy for demographic differences between groups of people, it does suggest the amount of choice consumers had in what they ate. So much of this assemblage is made up of so few species, cow and pig account for 37% of the identified assemblage by count and 83% by weight; the addition of chicken increases those percentages to 72% and 89%, respectively. Whether by dint of availability or affordability, and perhaps with the exception of fish, the people of Port Richmond had diets consistent with other urban contexts where would-be purchasers were almost exclusively selecting domesticated taxa.

As suggested above, it is likely that much of the mammalian meat was purchased either from brick-and-mortar butchers or at one of the many markets in the greater Philadelphia area. In either case, they would have been portioned out into regular and distinct cuts, catering to consumers’ wants and wallets. Early in the city’s history, farmers living in the greater Delaware Valley supported the fast-growing city in providing many of the foodstuffs its inhabitants consumed on a daily basis. Farms in the region, in addition to the primary crop staple of wheat, kept cows and pigs. In general, sheep were raised in fewer numbers and primarily not as a source of protein. ⁷⁴ As industrial processing plants began to centralize in cities across the Midwest during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, much of the meat, particularly beef and pork, might have originally come to Philadelphia by way of rail in refrigerated train cars and was then portioned locally. However, pigs remained easier to keep than most other species of mammal. Pigs, in addition to being shipped slaughtered from elsewhere, were also kept in the small yards and larger piggeries in Philadelphia through the early twentieth century, particularly in the less-developed southern portions of the city. ⁷⁵ The immediate nature of pigs might have drastically increased their availability to households, though it is unclear how much these pigs contributed to the market overall.

Rabbits, the only other mammal likely to have been used for dietary purposes, account for only a small portion of the assemblage. Rabbits, wild or otherwise, could have been acquired at market or even raised in people’s backyards. Overall, it is safe to say that wild mammals did not figure substantially in the diet of those residing in Port Richmond. Cats, dogs, mice, and rats were all also present at the sites. While it is unlikely that any of these taxa were dietary, they certainly provide a glimpse of the environment of Port Richmond. Whether as pets, nuisances, or somewhere in between, it is clear that all of these taxa were recovered coincidental to the deposition of other food-related specimens based on the different varieties of gnaw marks present in the assemblage.

Birds tell a story similar to the mammal assemblage. Chicken specimens, the most definitively domestic taxa, massively outnumber any other bird species. Combined, waterfowl such as ducks and geese are numerous enough so that it is clear their presence was not incidental. However, based on their overall paucity compared to chickens (less than 10%), they likely would have been only occasionally acquired. Whether the ducks and geese were domestic or wild is unclear, with both options plausible. While it is clear the turkey and the single guinea fowl specimen were also foodstuffs, the pigeon/dove and songbird specimens are slightly more ambiguous. While none of the remains from either species exhibit signs of butchering or burning, definitive indicators of human use, they were also both used widely in recipes and should not be ruled as strictly incidental contributions to the assemblage.

The chicken remains potentially indicate households supplementing a primarily market-based diet with meat from home. With the possible exception of pigs and rabbits, it is likely that most meat was acquired from a retailer. The means for a household to keep cows or sheep at home in the city would have been rather limited, given the space required to keep them, the cost required to feed them, and the resources required to preserve an entire carcass once slaughtered. However, it appears as though tenants may have been keeping flocks of chickens in their yards. A number of chicken crania and bones of the lower leg and foot were recovered from the sites. Taken alone, this does not definitively confirm home chicken husbandry. After all, leaving the heads, feet, and other oft-discarded portions on the carcass would inflate the price (by weight) of any birds bought and thus may have been desirable to a merchant (likely an uncommon practice). Additionally, these portions would have offered a common way to differentiate between male and female products, as well as assess their freshness. However, merchants may have removed the head and foot for the customer after purchase. The general absence of these portions and the breadth of ages seen in the assemblage (ranging from chick to mature adult) suggest a population that does not resemble chickens slaughtered uniformly in sex and age for meat and sold at market, as one might expect, given the developing commercial chicken industry in nearby Delaware.⁷⁶ Additionally, a number of the broken chicken long bones contain varying amounts of medullary bone. This bone builds up in hens prior to and during egg laying. It is possible that flocks of chickens were kept for their egg production and then died of natural causes or were slaughtered when they were no longer laying. Supporting this notion is the recovery of glass eggs and chicken wire in contexts also containing chicken remains in several features across both sites. Undecorated glass eggs were sometimes used as surrogates to influence the laying habits of hens. And though chicken wire has a variety of uses, one of them is in the construction of chicken coops and runs, protecting the chickens and their eggs from carnivores or scavengers.

As previously mentioned, much of the dietary diversity comes from the fish and reptiles. The assemblage contains a variety of freshwater, anadromous, and saltwater species. Like chickens, fish and reptiles offer another glimpse into the ways in which households may have supplemented their market-centric diet with locally procured protein. Specifically, turtles and the freshwater and anadromous species of fish could have been caught in the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, or any of their myriad streams and drainages, by anyone possessing a rod or net and some patience.⁷⁷ Snapping (and other) turtles would have been an accessible way for Philadelphians to engage in the haute cuisine of the nineteenth century. While green turtle soup might have been financially out of many people’s reach, snapping and other turtles would have been close at hand. Similarly, the Schuylkill was famous for the ease with which one could catch scores of catfish with a single drag of the net. Even today, you can see folks casting a line along the banks of the river. People living in Port Richmond could have supplemented the fishmonger’s selection with their own catch.

Without a doubt, the foodways of those living in Port Richmond were varied. The faunal material likely only speaks to one portion of this variety. Furthermore, the foodways of those living in Port Richmond exhibited variation across the population. While all those living at what became the Cambia–Ann and Somerset–Cambria Sites shared their place of residence, they differed in their incomes, their nations of origin, and their religions. The historical research speaks to those differences as facets of their identities and offers an opportunity to explore the ways in which these separate identities impacted what people ate.

Cultural Identity and Macrobotanicals

As previously discussed, Port Richmond was home to a number of immigrant groups. The neighborhood’s location near one of the city’s railyards and docks provided employment opportunities for laborers, sailors, and factory workers. Numerous small business owners lived and operated their stores out of the neighborhood as well. Personal preferences, cultural practices, and economic standing would have driven choices surrounding what and how food was acquired, prepared, and consumed. The botanical assemblages from analyzed features at both sites are relatively similar, with a generally consistent array of comestibles and occasional occurrences of unique taxa, such as condiments and less common fruits and vegetables (see Cambria–Ann and Somerset–Cambria Site reports). As a whole, the botanical assemblage does not point to large-scale differences in assemblages by site or property that overtly speak to ethnic, religious, or cultural choices—some of which may have to do with how plant-based foods were acquired and utilized, as well as issues surrounding how botanicals were deposited and preserved in the privy features.

Many of the culturally associated food items for several of the identified ethnicities on the block would not have survived archaeologically. A majority of plant-specific foods identified as core to most European American diets, such as cabbage/sauerkraut, legumes, onions, potatoes, and numerous other leafy greens, were harvested prior to producing seeds and/or did not survive intact in the human digestive tract or privy environment. Grain-based foods often had close cultural meanings but similarly leave little to no mark in archaeobotanical assemblages. Breads, noodles, dumplings, pierogis, and other flour-based items may have been purchased already baked or baked at home with processed flour. Small amounts of wheat kernels recovered from one feature at each site were the only botanical evidence of grain-based foods from the neighborhood; however, the vast majority of grain-based foods were likely prepared with flour purchased pre-ground. Interpreting ethnicity through the botanical assemblage is further complicated by the fact that the cultural value in many plant-based foods was not necessarily based on the ingredient, but how it was prepared. In an urban environment with access to a wide variety of food items, the consistency with which some of the taxa were recovered make it clear that many of the Port Richmond residences were consuming similar foods; however, the way they consumed those items undoubtedly varied from household to household. Several of the identified fruits and vegetables could be prepared as part of meals or dishes with known cultural associations, but without the context of the actual preparation, their presence is ambiguous.

The only hint at culturally associated foodways practices is through a handful of recovered herbs and spices. While the specific uses of the identified taxa are ambiguous and should be interpreted as such, items such as mustard, celery seeds, poppy seeds, and the lone identified sesame seed may hint at culturally specific food items that were undoubtedly being actively prepared and consumed in the neighborhood. German immigrants controlled many of the grocery and bakery businesses in the mid–nineteenth century and catered to both German patrons and the general public.⁷⁸ Many German bakers utilized sesame seeds as a topping for breads and rolls. They also used poppy seeds as a filling in at least one version of the wildly popular yeast-based kuchen, or coffee cake.⁷⁹ Mustard and celery seeds were often utilized as pickling spices. Numerous immigrant communities favored pickled vegetables, particularly Germans and Eastern European Jews; these vegetables could be pickled at home or purchased in German and Jewish-owned delicatessens, pushcarts, and stores.^{80 81} Whether the recovered herbs and spices were directly related to the consumption of ethnically specific foods by the communities producing them or not, their presence nonetheless speaks to the influence of immigrants on foodways practices in Port Richmond.