Archaeological investigations at 201 Folsom Street, San Francisco

This thesis examines features and artifact assemblages from an archaeological site known as 201 Folsom Street, CA-SFR-000193/H. The thesis presents analysis of this site though a study of archival research, recovered artifacts, buried features and interprets aspects of the daily lives of the people living in the project vicinity during the mid- and latenineteenth century. Focusing on boarding house and family home privies from 201 Folsom Street, I evaluate relevant artifact assemblages for differences in consumer behavior between the different households. This is accomplished by analysis of the relative durability and decorations of plates and cups between features and by comparative frequency analysis of children’s items uncovered between them as well. The first chapter provides an introduction, project description, presents research hypotheses, and briefly discusses conclusions. The second chapter offers an historical background and a review of relevant scholarly and gray literature. The third chapter describes what was unearthed at the project site in some detail, feature by feature, focusing on those features most relevant to the hypotheses around which this thesis revolves. The fourth chapter offers a more detailed exploration of those features of greatest interest here. The last chapter concludes by presenting analyses of the findings of the archaeological investigations of the two privy types at the 201 Folsom Street site. The thesis ultimately finds that there are more durable plates and cups within the boarding house assemblage. However, there were not more toys found within the family assemblage as previously hypothesized. This thesis raises other archaeological research questions that can be answered through further investigations.