Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology And History In Virginia City

Notes

around differences defined by major cultural groups. Rather, it is clear that numerous socioeconomic factions were also involved, making for even more complex levels of variation within each of those groups. Some artifacts even indicated women’s participation in the multifaceted mix of saloons, which deepens our understanding of yet another, genderbased component of the archaeological record and of the past in general.56 In the case of Virginia City, attention to gender helps to expand the dimensions of saloon diversity. For instance, women were definitely participating in the activities of the Boston Saloon and O’Brien and Costello’s Saloon and Shooting Gallery, but they were not as much in evidence at Piper’s Old Corner Bar and the Hibernia Brewery.57 Then again, the distinction may reflect the taming influence of middleclass values on the “wild” West. Middle-class ideas of morality and “ladyhood ,” which European American women, usually miners’ wives and families , brought with them to western mining camps by the 1850s, prohibited respectable women from associating themselves with saloons.58 Drinking 160 x b o o m t o w n s a l o o n s Fig. 8.3. Brass mouthpiece from a trombone from the Boston Saloon. houses were public places where men gathered, with drinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries becoming one of the most gendersegregated activities in the United States.59 For the most part, the women who were involved with such male-oriented, vice-laden settings were perceived as having questionable reputations themselves—whether they actually warranted such reputations or not.60 For this reason, well-thought-of saloons, such as Piper’s Old Corner Bar, were probably frequented by gentlemen , as implied by historical documents and as emphasized by the absence of artifacts associated with women. Undeniably, many of those gentlemen sought female companionship, but they most likely had to patronize other businesses to get it. This meant that places like Piper’s remained relatively highly regarded, while others, such as O’Brien and Costello’s, were rendered less reputable. On the other hand, the apparent scarcity of women at the austere Hibernia Brewery reminds us that the story cannot be that simple. Much like Piper’s Old Corner Bar, few to no women were archaeologically visible in the artifacts from that Irish-owned business. This implies that the Hibernia Brewery catered primarily to men—perhaps men of Irish ancestry. Despite the active role of women in other Irish social drinking contexts,61 they seem to have been scarcely involved at all with the everyday operations of this establishment. Although the reasons for this may never be explained, it is possible that the Hibernia was simply a pub, without the posh interior decor of Virginia City’s well-known gentlemen’s saloons, where Irish men could go out for a drink without being in the presence of women with questionable reputations. Women at the Boston Saloon add yet another twist to our understanding of gender and diversity in saloons. Unlike Virginia City’s European Americans and European immigrants, people of African ancestry did not have the wide choice of respectable, nonrespectable, classy, or seedy drinking establishments . Consequently, women in the Boston Saloon, like the men, probably represented various socioeconomic classes. Certainly many African Conclusion x 161 American women, in the name of self-improvement, respectability, and temperance, avoided the place.62 Other women, such as J. Lind, may have worked there as courtesans. Still others, such as Amanda Payne, most likely frequented the D Street enterprise for business purposes.63 The dna on the tobacco pipe stem takes this story a step further by linking a woman with a common indulgence at the Boston Saloon. The image of a woman smoking a pipe in an African American saloon challenges prevailing assumptions of who was relaxing in public drinking places in the West. Without a doubt, this is a unique situation, with information made possible by the serendipitous convergence of historical research, archaeological excavation , dna preservation, and advances in forensic science.64 Nevertheless, it should inspire everyone who reads this book to abandon their stereotypical assumptions about western saloons and open their minds to the innumerable accounts that make up our complex history. People from various cultures, classes, and genders participated in the enduring activity of social drinking, creating vast pockets of wide-ranging saloon experiences throughout urban mining boomtowns. A...