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Book

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The Ward uncovered : the archaeology of everyday life

Call Number

  • 307.76 W263 (CEN)

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Publication Information

Toronto : Coach House Books, [2018]

Physical Description

303 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 23 cm

Summary

"An archaeological dig uncovers the secret history of Toronto's long-forgotten first immigrant neighbourhood. In early 2015, a team of archaeologists began digging test trenches on a non-descript parking lot next to Toronto City Hall--a site designated to become a major new court house. What they discovered was the rich buried history of an enclave that was part of The Ward-- that dense, poor, but vibrant 'arrival city' that took shape between the 1840s and the 1950s. Home to waves of immigrants and refugees--Irish, African-Americans, Italians, eastern European Jews, and Chinese--The Ward was stigmatized for decades by Toronto's politicians and residents, and eventually razed to make way for New City Hall. The archaeologists who excavated the lot, led by co-editor Holly Martelle, discovered almost half a million artifacts--a spectacular collection of household items, tools, toys, shoes, musical instruments, bottles, industrial objects, food scraps, luxury items, and even a pre-contact Indigenous projectile point. Martelle's team also unearthed the foundations of a nineteenth-century Black church, a Russian synagogue, early-twentieth-century factories, cisterns, privies, wooden drains, and even row houses built by formerly enslaved African Americans. Following on the heels of the immensely popular The Ward: The Life and Loss of Toronto's First Immigrant Neighbourhood, which told the stories of some of the people who lived there, The Ward Uncovered digs up the tales of things, using these well-preserved artifacts to tell a different set of stories about life in this long-forgotten and much-maligned neighbourhood."--

Contents

  • Preface / Hon Jean. Augustine
  • Introduction: the object is the subject / John Lorinc and Tatum Taylor. The lay of the land : Part lot 11 / John Lorinc
  • Chief Justice Robinson's plan / Guylaine Pétrin
  • Doing justice to the courthouse site / Tatum Tyler. Daily life : The privies / Holly Martelle
  • A fine kettle of fish / Holly Martelle
  • You are how you eat / Tom Porawski
  • Coconuts in latrines! / Elizabeth Driver
  • Digging up the north market / Peter Popkin
  • A matter of mending / Matthew Beaudoin
  • Ceramics as nineteenth-century social media / Holly Martelle
  • Two eyes and a smile / Abbey Flower
  • The civic engagement of ward children / Bethany Good
  • "Jewish boys with hoops" / Vid Ingelevics
  • All manner of shoes / Abbey Flower
  • The milk bottle battle / Sarah B. Hood
  • The seltzer bottle's journey / Nicole Brandon. Work life : A tool from another time: the projectile poitn / Ronald F. Williamson
  • Adding sparkle to everyday life / Sarah B. Hood
  • When Eaton's pitched its tent / Wayne Reeves
  • Cap and trade / Ellen Scheinberg
  • The multiple lives of ordinary buildings / John Lorinc
  • The commercial tenants of Chestnut Street's factories. Social life : The history of a black Canadian church / Rosemary Sadlier
  • Freedom abounds / Natasha Henry
  • Resisting stereotypes: African Torontonians protest minstrelsy / Karolyn Smardz Frost
  • Remembering Uncle Tom's Cabin / Cheryl Thompson
  • A black literary society / Heather Murray
  • "Fashionable Jamaican wedding" / Kathy Grant
  • The synagogue on Centre Avenue / Simon Patrick Rogers
  • Animal bones, broken dishes, and a cup for Elijah / Holly Martelle
  • The role of the shammas / Ellen Scheinberg
  • Worship services in translation / Greer Anne Wenh-in Ng
  • Memories of the Chinese United Church / Gordon Chong. Individual lives : Writing home / edited by Tatum Taylor
  • Correspondent: Cecelia Holmes / Karolyn Smardz Frost
  • More than a shoemaker: Francis Griffin Simpson / Karolyn Smardz Frost
  • Francis Simpson on being black in 1860s Toronto / edited by John Lorinc
  • The arresting case of Annie Whalen / Craig Heron
  • A druggist for Chinatown: Tom Lock / Arlene Chan
  • The stone in the ground: Rev. Thomas Jackson / Rosemary Sadlier
  • From pushcart to property magnate: Henry Greisman / Ellen Scheinberg. The archaeological life : Bomb scare / Holly Martelle
  • Mapping the past / Michael McClelland
  • Why were archaeologists working in the ward? / Ronald F. WIlliamson and David Robertson
  • Water table: how the organics survived / Abbey Flower
  • The mystery of the hidden cross / Holly Martelle
  • The layered city: the promise of urban archaeology / John Lorinc
  • Drawing conclusions : Holly Martelle, Michael McClelland, John Lorinc and Tatum Taylor. Notes
  • Image credits
  • THe contributors
  • The editors
  • Acknowledgements.

Subjects

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