Dr Kimberley (Kim) Connor is a historical archaeologist and food historian who focuses on the everyday life of immigrants in the 19th Century. Dr Connor's talk on "Beer, Bitters, and Batteries - Glass from the Market Street Chinatown" presents the first results from a new analysis of glass containers and tablewares from the Market Street Chinatown in San Jose.
Bottles, jars, and tumblers are extremely useful archaeological artifacts, telling us about both technological changes in 19th Century glassmaking, and about the trade and consumption of the products themselves. By studying them, we can learn about everyday life in the Chinatown, about the foods and drinks that people consumed, and about the tablewares they used to prepare and serve them. Tracing where the glass came from reveals connections within and beyond San Jose, highlighting the numerous social and economic relationships that Chinese and Chinese American inhabitants had in the United States. This sheds light on the complicated ways that those living in the Chinatown combined Chinese and Euro-American foods, medicines, and dining practices in their new home.
Dr Kimberley Connor completed her dissertation at Stanford University on food and dining in a female immigration depot in Sydney, Australia. Now a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Stanford Archaeology Center, Kim's project looks at life in the Market Street Chinatown, San Jose through analysis of the glass containers and tablewares. Her goal is to understand how people's material lives, especially the ways they ate and cooked, were affected by the process of immigration.
Chinese Historical & Cultural Project