Abstract
Excavations at the Smith-Maskell Site (28CA124) in the Spring of 2011 by URS Corporation revealed a number of early 19th-century features behind what was once 318 Cooper Street in Camden, New Jersey. These features produced significant quantities of Federal period tea and tablewares, including a number of Philadelphia Queensware vessels. During this period Camden was beginning its transition from a scattering of sparsely populated villages to a city of summer residences and country retreats for Philadelphia’s well-to-do middle class. The likely owners of the Philadelphia Queensware found at the Smith-Maskell Site were among this prosperous middle class, and thus the presence of this ware in their household assemblages insinuates that consumer choice, particularly related to patriotism and the desire to support domestic industries, played an important factor in the ware’s apparent popularity and widespread distribution. While trade embargos in place before and after the War of 1812 certainly affected the availability of English ceramics, the Philadelphia Queensware found at the Smith-Maskell site speaks to other forces at work as well.
Recommended Citation
Kutys, Thomas J.; Cress, George D.; White, Rebecca L.; and Wuebber, Ingrid A.
(2017)
"“A Bright Pattern of Domestic Virtue and Economy”: Philadelphia Queensware at the Smith-Maskell Site (28CA124), Camden, New Jersey,"
Northeast Historical Archaeology:
Vol.
46
46, Article 7.
Available at:
https://orb.binghamton.edu/neha/vol46/iss1/7
Included in
American Material Culture Commons, Archaeological Anthropology Commons, Other History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, United States History Commons
