Bottle

2016.3.1

Chinese Americans have always been caretakers at Stanford, first as railroad workers whose labor helped finance the founding of the institution, then as the university's earliest gardeners, cooks, custodians, and launderers whose efforts maintained the institution. A lack of surviving documents and racist legislation against Chinese immigrants impedes a historical understanding of Chinese American experiences. Artifacts excavated from campus lands and photographs support a fuller exploration of the publically perceived and privately enacted lives of Chinese Americans at early Stanford. These materials also highlight the dynamic exchanges between Chinese and non–Chinese lives. Chinese Americans were not the insular community stereotypically depicted in texts but a persistent, vibrant presence in the Stanford University community. All artifacts are from the Stanford University Archaeology Collections.

Bridging Experiences: This American–manufactured glass bottle contained a remedy and was likely incorporated by Chinese workers into their healing practices.

Cork closure, machine–made glass bottle, 1910 1935. Arboretum Chinese Quarters site (Object ID 2016.3.1).

Glass

North America; California; Santa Clara County; Stanford

Collected by Jeffrey Fairbairn and Jim Rutherford of Stanford University. Found during construction activities on Stanford University lands in the area of the Arboretum in 1981 through 1984 in the vicinity of the former Chinese Quarters. Transferred by Fairbarin and Rutherford to the Field Conservation Facility on an unknown date. Transferred from the Field Conservation Facility in 2016.

Archaeology; North America; California