Browse Items (24 total)

Discovered alongside many other items of its kind, this object was identified as a food preparation and storage vessel. Its circular base and wide open top suggests that it was used for preparation over storage - it was not found with an airtight lid…

In the second half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, doctors and patients at home relied on glass syringes to treat various conditions, including venereal diseases. Unlike hypodermic needles, these artifacts, also…

Sugar boxes held sugar to sweeten tea and coffee or to make unpalatable wine drinkable. This nearly-intact pearlware example from the early 1800s has a hand-painted garland design.

A product of the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company in late 1870s, this Mason’s Improved Jar proved to be popular and accessible to many people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A common household item, the jar helped housewives during the…

A variety of unlabeled medicinal bottles were discovered in the Cooper Street dig, including this small glass bottle. It could have held a number of liquids used to heal a number of ailments. It would have been kept with others of its kind in the…

Mothers in the late nineteenth century used Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, made by Curtis & Perkins of Bangor, Maine, to ease their babies’ teething pain and other ailments. It lived up to its name, soothing distressed children into a peaceful…

Throughout the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs sold their own pharmaceutical concoctions without regulation. This was the business of proprietary medicine. This bottle likely contained pharmaceutical products or flavoring extract which was made…

Salt-glazed earthware jars replaced lead-glazed vessels for food storage as the dangers of lead became common knowledge. Once filled, treated paper or cloth formed a seal over the open mouth. Cookbooks in the nineteenth century recommended these jars…

Henry Stiegel’s distinctive thin-walled drinking glasses became popular in the Philadelphia area after his emigration from Germany in 1750. His technique spread to other glasshouses after his death. Pieces in the style were sometimes produced at the…

Typewriter manufacturing companies of the early twentieth century often paired the machines with a manual and a cleaning kit, providing consumers with two cleaning brushes, an oil can, and a small screwdriver. This "Typewriters Companion" dusting…