1
10
5
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/623e1a76d695c6d377a9311f663b84dc.jpg
042a37857d05cd007c70558770e1997c
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/1908d4f95094b138bf7e333bb92209fd.jpg
60ece30cb81e813ac440635d44090497
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/68ac1ae5b59b2cfae7fc1fc22690fb4b.jpg
0541be6d60b4e869afc3f8a46e63604d
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/b8ba05cf565780f7c2b273d34a3295c1.jpg
4ee4b1455934728cc4474efe57d96aa7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artifacts
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Artifacts from the collections of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts.
Description
An account of the resource
Artifacts recovered during archaeological dig prior to construction of the Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photograph
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Typewriter Dusting Brush
Description
An account of the resource
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 brush, made in France, would have been paired with a shorter, stiff-bristled brush that was used first to remove the hardened grime from between the type keys. The dusting brush was typically used after the type brush to wiping the typewriter clean of loosened dirt and dust without harming it. The handle was originally threaded with horsehair bristles, creating a much softer surface than the wire bristles of its partner, the type brush. With its long, curved handle and its wide set of soft bristles, the Typewriters Companion played a significant role in maintaining typewriters in the early twentieth century.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
c. 1880-1930; photographs, March 2018.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Recovered from excavation prior to construction of Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
McKenna Britton (Graduate Student, American Material Culture, Spring 2018)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Collection of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts
Relation
A related resource
Affleck, Richard, George Cress, Ingrid Weubber, Rebecca White, Kimberly Morrell, and Thomas Kutys. Phase II and Data-Recovery Archaeological Excavations of the Smith-Maskell Site Cooper Street Development Camden, New Jersey. Archaeological Excavation Report, Burlington: URS Corporation.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Bone brush handle, 14.5 cm (length) x 0.5 cm (width).
1880s
1890s
1900
1910s
1920s
1930s
300 Block
Alumni House Display
Archaeology
Business
France
Technology
Typewriting
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/bc757523838064acaee2962d13bd2b00.jpg
680147514b7d8bba098667ce3fbc7cdd
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mason's Improved Fruit Jar
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Photograph by Jacob Lechner
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/8b635b587d2081ad83ec73a97fc2f8fe.mov
d469f39d343e6990a97c1f2ab0acc320
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mason Jar Quicktime Animation
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artifacts
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Artifacts from the collections of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts.
Description
An account of the resource
Artifacts recovered during archaeological dig prior to construction of the Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photograph
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Mason's Improved Fruit Jar
Description
An account of the resource
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 time-consuming process of canning and changed the way people viewed food preservation. The storage and protection these jars provided helped mothers achieve their goals of maintaining a healthy household. These jars were mass produced until the twentieth century, which causes their abundance today.
The inventor of the Mason jar, John Landis Mason, was born in Vineland, N.J., in 1832. He patented his jar in 1858.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Recovered from excavation prior to construction of Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Ashley Angelucci; photograph by Jacob Lechner
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
Late nineteenth century; photograph, April 2018
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Reconstructed glass jar, 7 inches tall and 4.5 inches wide.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Collection of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts
Relation
A related resource
Affleck, Richard, George Cress, Ingrid Weubber, Rebecca White, Kimberly Morrell, and Thomas Kutys. Phase II and Data-Recovery Archaeological Excavations of the Smith-Maskell Site Cooper Street Development Camden, New Jersey. Archaeological Excavation Report, Burlington: URS Corporation.
1870s
300 Block
Alumni House Display
Archaeology
Business
Domestic Life
Food and Drink
Vineland
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/d017824920e6ec95d254b9e65b5f9340.jpg
f33ba2518b512503ee1135444e7652f7
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Artifacts
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Artifacts from the collections of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts.
Description
An account of the resource
Artifacts recovered during archaeological dig prior to construction of the Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.
Still Image
A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Photograph
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Proprietary Medicine Bottle
Description
An account of the resource
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 using narcotics such as morphine or cocaine as the chief ingredient. The original contents of this bottle can still be seen inside, they are however, a mystery. This bottle is a mouth blown, mold pressed glass bottle. Bottles like this were mass-produced at glass factories like Whitall Tatum & Co. and Wheaton Industries in Millville, N.J., and shipped all over the United States.<br /><br /> Read more about this object: <a href="https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/13">https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/items/show/13</a>
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
c. 1800-1875; photograph, April 2018.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Recovered from excavation prior to construction of Rutgers-Camden dormitory at 330 Cooper Street, Camden, N.J.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Will Krakower (Graduate Student, American Material Culture, Spring 2018); photograph by Jacob Lechner.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Collection of Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts
Relation
A related resource
Affleck, Richard, George Cress, Ingrid Weubber, Rebecca White, Kimberly Morrell, and Thomas Kutys. Phase II and Data-Recovery Archaeological Excavations of the Smith-Maskell Site Cooper Street Development Camden, New Jersey. Archaeological Excavation Report, Burlington: URS Corporation.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Glass bottle, 5 ¼ inches in height, including the neck (¾ inch). Base approximately 13/16 inches wide and 1-5/8 inches long.
1800s
1810s
1820s
1830s
1840s
1850s
1860s
1870s
300 Block
Alumni House Display
Archaeology
Business
Health and Medicine
Millville
-
https://omeka.camden.rutgers.edu/files/original/315a4990dc4e3673fb6f8ed59caf6c1a.pdf
a2b1827f16397b2c6c852ebce4c65a68
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Research Reports
Description
An account of the resource
Research by student and faculty investigators.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Tia Antonelli, Lucy Davis, William Krakower, Charlene Mires, Timothy Potero
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Patent/Proprietary Medicine Bottle
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Will Krakower
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Rutgers University-Camden
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 2018, Will Krakower. Do not reproduce or cite without permission from the author.
300 Block
Archaeology
Business
Health and Medicine
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
People
Description
An account of the resource
Residents of Cooper Street
Person
An individual.
Biographical Text
During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, two Chinese laundries operated in the 200 block of Cooper Street. Like their counterparts throughout the United States in this era, the men who hand-laundered clothing for Camden's white residents endured harassment and sometimes violence. They also earned respect from Cooper Street neighbors who came to their defense as they persisted in the hot, damp, monotonous work of earning a living in one of the few occupations open to them at the time.<br /><br />Camden gained its first Chinese laundry by 1877, around the same time that a <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/chinatown/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">community of Chinese immigrants</a> began to form in Philadelphia. Judging by business listings in Camden city directories, Hong Sing's laundry at 62 and then 108 N. Second Street was the only commercial hand-laundry in the city from 1877 until 1881. By 1884, the number of Chinese laundries grew to six, enough to attract the attention of the <em>Camden County Courier.</em> In a story headlined "The Heathen Chinese," the <em>Courier's</em> writer observed: "If in the next few years our Chinese population and their laundries increase in the proportion that they have recently we shall soon have a veritable Chinatown in our midst, and if any one has a dirty shirt or soiled linen it will be his own fault." Camden's Chinese laundries had three to four men each, living at the laundries, and the city's residents were becoming accustomed to seeing the "Celestials" who wore traditional clothing and braided their hair in queues. The Chinese, for their part, operated at risk of vandalism and attacks by young men described by the newspaper as "hoodlums."<br /><br />The numbers of Chinese and non-Chinese laundries in Camden grew with the city's population, and Chinese immigrants dominated the business with 30 of 41 laundries in 1890; 40 of 63 in 1900; 37 of 49 in 1910; and 29 of 35 in 1920. Some Chinese entrepreneurs ran two or three laundries, and some started laundries other South Jersey communities like Merchantville and Haddonfield. They did not, as the Camden newspaper expected, coalesce into a local Chinatown but dispersed their laundries around the city. On days when business did not require their presence, the laundry men maintained cultural connections by participating in the social life of Philadelphia's Chinatown.<br /><br />The Chinese laundries on Cooper Street were located at 214 and 220, in a row of four small brick row houses that then stood on the site occupied in 2020 by the Cooper Street Historic Building Apartments and its adjacent parking lot. The row houses, two and one-quarter stories each, may have been built as early as 1820, when Cooper Street was still a country road leading to the Delaware River ferries. The aging row thus would have offered a relatively cheap yet prominent location on a street otherwise regarded as a fashionable address.<br /><br />The first of the Chinese laundries on Cooper Street is documented as operating for just one year, during 1885 at 220 Cooper. This house had adjacent wood-frame outbuildings and stables, previously occupied by a milk distribution depot and a manufacturing facility for Fleishmann's yeast. During the location's year as a laundry, the Camden city directory named the owner as Junkee Kwong. The New Jersey State Census recorded three Chinese men at this address, rendering their names as Hong Sing, Charlie Lee, and Louie Lee. Like so many other Chinese men during the era of the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chinese Exclusion Act</a> (1882), they were single; immigration restriction prohibited bringing additional Chinese women or families to the United States.<br /><br />A Chinese laundry of greater duration operated at 214 Cooper Street from 1889 to 1901. In 1889, Ghe Lee advertised his business as the <em>Camden Courier-Post</em> as "the first good laundry in Camden." City directories subsequently listed the laundry operators at this address as Charlie Tom (1890-93) and Ying Lee (1894-1901). In 1895, Ying Lee and the laundry shared the address with the family of a German cigar-maker. The laundry at 214 Cooper opened while new, grander houses were built next door at 204, 206, and 210 Cooper in 1890. The neighbors who moved into these homes included a retired wealthy couple, the head of a manufacturing firm, and an attorney.<br /><br />An incident in 1897 provides greatest access to the experience of Ying Lee, the 214 Cooper Street laundry, and the attitudes of Cooper Street neighbors toward the Chinese in their midst. Ying Lee, born in China in 1860, had lived in the United States since childhood. He would have lived first in the western United States, where racism and discrimination prompted migration to other regions. By 1880, at age 20, he was in Philadelphia. By 1894, he was in the laundry business at 214 Cooper Street. Over the door, he displayed a small American flag. <br /><br />Harassment and vandalism of Chinese laundries was common in Camden, and the rowdiness alarmed and frightened Cooper Street's residents. Their appeals to police seemed to receive little attention. For Ying Lee, a particularly harrowing incident occurred in 1897 when three young men, two white and one African American, threatened him with knives and held him at gunpoint while they searched for money. Thieves had learned that Chinese laundrymen kept cash in their businesses, and in this case they escaped with $15--not a large sum, but a significant amount for the income of a hand laundry.<br /><br />The escalation of violence prompted Ying Lee's neighbors to take further steps to try to restore peace to the neighborhood. The problem was not the Chinaman, they told the local press, but the local rowdyism against him. Dissatisfied with the response of local officials, a civil engineer who lived across the street from the laundry, Richard Pancoast, looked across the river to Philadelphia's Chinatown for assistance. He alerted the missionary in charge of the YMCA in Chinatown, Frederick Poole, who visited the mayor of Camden to urge action against laundry violence. To the consternation of local officials, Poole described Camden as a particular problem area in a letter to the Chinese Minister in the United States in Washington. The missionary also called the matter to the attention of the governor of New Jersey, who summoned Camden's mayor to a meeting.<br /><br />The publicity does not seem to have prompted any particular action on the part of authorities. The next year, however, the Camden Board of Health focused on 214 Cooper Street as an example of unsanitary properties needing attention for the benefit of public health. They cast this as an action against the owner of the property, a local oyster dealer, but their perception would have aligned with then-common associations between Chinese immigrants and disease. The 214 Cooper Street house, according to the Board of Health, "has been a constant menace to health in that community for a number of years." The board ordered under-drainage to reduce risk of typhoid fever and other diseases.<br /><br />In the wake of the 1897 holdup, Ying Lee's neighbors encouraged him to get a gun to defend himself, but he declined. He remained in business at 214 Cooper Street until 1901, and he expanded to one and sometimes two other laundries in Camden. He was displaced from Cooper Street when the house he rented became part of the property being assembled for construction of a new mansion for a wealthy shipmaster, John B. Adams. Ying Lee may have returned to Philadelphia, where that city's directory in 1904 listed a person by the same name in the business of Chinese goods at 912 Race Street, in the heart of Philadelphia's Chinatown.
Time period on Cooper Street
1885, 1889-1901
Location(s) - Cooper Street
214 and 220 Cooper Street
Occupation
Laundry Operators
Associated Individuals
(As recorded by Census or Camden City Directories)
Junkee Kwong (220 Cooper Street, 1885)
Hong Sing (220 Cooper Street, 1885)
Charlie Lee (220 Cooper Street, 1885)
Louie Lee (220 Cooper Street, 1885)
Ghe Lee (214 Cooper Street, 1889)
Charlie Tom (214 Cooper Street, 1890-93)
Ying Lee (214 Cooper Street, 1894-1901)
Richard Pancoast (neighbor, 205 Cooper Street)
Research by
Charlene Mires and Lucy Davis
Sources
Camden City Directories (Ancestry.com).<br /> Camden and Philadelphia Newspapers (Newspapers.com).<br /> Jung, John. <em>Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain. </em>Yin and Yang Press, 2010.<br /> U.S. Census.
Posted by
Charlene Mires
Direct corrections to cmires@camden.rutgers.edu
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Chinese Laundry Men
Description
An account of the resource
Two Chinese laundries operated on Cooper Street during the late nineteenth century.
1880s
1890s
200 Block
214 Cooper Street
220 Cooper Street
Business
China
Crime
Immigrants
Laundries
Philadelphia
Police
Public Health