ABSTRACT
Archaeological examination of urban places is seldom initiated to answer questions posed by mainstream historians; rather, our work tends to take place in advance of the construction of new buildings, roadways, parks, and other amenities designed to blot out earlier evidence of ‘urban blight’ of one sort or another. Two case studies of urban ‘brownfield’ sites, one in Boston, one in Lowell, Massachusetts, led archaeologists to the documents to illuminate the archaeological record of two unheralded but remarkable 19th-century lives. The first story is of a Lowell boarding-house keeper, Amanda Fox, a ‘respectable widow’ who ‘kept house’ for the Boott Cotton Mills at the same address for nearly 50 years. The second tale came to light during Boston’s ‘Big Dig’ — the Central Artery project; finds from 19th- century privies led archaeologists to Dr Padelford, a seemingly respectable physician who married a madam and lived with her at the brothel she ran. Archaeology that brings to light the lost lives and stories of people like Mrs Fox and Dr Padelford matters; the archaeology of the recent past is not just important but vital in reconstructing the texture of a century of change and upheaval, of progress and degradation, of 21st-century cities in the making.
