Digging up History!

Last weekend, through the combined effort of the Montana State University Anthropology Department and The Extreme History Project (EHP) there was some excavation underway in downtown Bozeman! This is an example of the magic of thoughtful development. Bozeman's Historical Preservation Board, Extreme History (a local nonprofit), and a civic minded developer worked collectively to have this site excavated to preserve the history of Bozeman before it was lost under a new hotel. The items found will be processed and researched by the Anthropology Department and EHP before making being incorporated into the lobby of the new business.

All images by Andrew Lyons.

The site sits next to The Extreme History Project headquarters, which is located in the only remaining brothel in what was once Bozeman's Red-Light District. Aerial view of the dig site on East Mendendhall Street

The site was open to the public so of course I took my family to go check it out! Both kiddos got to help sift dirt and my lovely husband got these amazing shots of the dig. There were volunteers on hand to explain the dig process, and contextualize the found objects by telling the history of the area.

This is an area of Bozeman that I am intimately familiar with, pun intended!* Our historic Red-Light District ran on the from North Rouse Avenue to North Bozeman Avenue on the south side of Mendenhall. It was in this two-block section that the soiled doves of Bozeman plied their trade in brothels, cabins, and cribs from about 1870 to 1918. Prostitution was always illegal but during this time it inhabited a legal grey area, along with other vice crimes like gambling, and drug use. The women of the red-light district were fined on a similar calendar basis as those who paid licensing fees for legitimate businesses. Illegitimate or not all those simoleons (19^th century slang for money) wound up in the same place, Bozeman’s city coffers.

Unfortunately, what didn’t wind up anywhere were the personal words of the women who worked in the bawdy houses. Their voices were rarely preserved in letters or diaries so archaeology work like this can provide invaluable insight into their worlds.

* I am the co-curator of the current exhibit “Illuminating the Shadowed World Of Bozeman’s Historic Red-Light District” open now at EHP, go check it out!

So many cool finds!

Resinol Advertisement, The Bozeman Courier, January 01, 1931

These were just a few of the historical treasures the team pulled out of the ground. above we see the bottom portion of a milk glass pot that contained a salve called Resinol. This was a product first developed by Dr. Merville Hamilton Carter (1857-1939) for his private practice patients in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1895 the Resinol Chemical Company was founded and began to mass-produce the “antipruritic and emollient” which was used to treat a kaleidoscope of skin ailments. Vintage labels state that Resinol:

“Relieves Distress of Itching of Eczema – Chapping – Abrasions – Minor Burns – Ivy Poisoning – Chafing – Sunburns – Rectal or Vulval Itching and Discomfort and many other minor skin or scalp irritations.”

It is not a stretch to imagine this little jar being tucked into the trunk of a woman working as a prostitute in early 20^th century Bozeman. It would be applicable to treat a variety of discomforts related to her work.

Lydia E. Pinkham’s (1819-1883) was a crafty inventor, and an ingenious marketer and entrepreneur who in 1876 turned her Vegetable Compound into the go-to therapy for a variety of “female complaints.” The problem with medicine at the turn of the century was that it wasn’t particularly well regulated. There was a total lack of federal oversight as to the safety and effectiveness of drugs until the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. It truly was the wild west in terms of medicine and many prescriptions, even from physicians who had attended medical school in some form were as likely to kill you as a cure you. The nascent FDA, the Bureau of Chemistry came about in 1901.

So, Lydia and her ilk were free to hock their wares with abandon. Pinkham’s compound as a patent medicine was not unique because of its chemical alchemy (it consisted mainly of herbs and booze) but because she was a genius marketer, Shark Tank hopefuls take note. Lydia published lengthy “articles” in newspapers across the country that told stories of women “cured” of “hysteria” and other female foibles caused by our pesky reproductive systems.

Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound Advertisement, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle, May 09, 1917

Lydia was what us modern folks might call an absolute Girl Boss. She was an abolitionist, anti-segregationist, and homies with the abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass. She was a feminist, not afraid to discuss the workings of the female reproductive system including menstruation and menopause out in public at a time when women wore about 5x more undergarments than we do now and a little ankle flash could cause a scandal. It might be a stretch to say that the women of Bozeman’s red-light district agreed with all of Lydia’s political philosophy, but it isn’t hard to imagine that for women whose work was intricately entangled in their very female bodies might at the end of a long day reach for a snip or two of her vegetable compound.