Before work started on Boston's "Big Dig," archeologists studied some key sites along the route. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich describes what they found in a 17th Century privy on a lot that used to front on a street called Ann Street, and what that says about about early Boston: Big Dig, Little Dig, Hidden Worlds: Boston (Common-place, July, 2003)
Ulrich's also got her hands on the the divorce records of the people who used the privy. Pretty lurid stuff.
Common-place is a well designed, and extremely interesting, on-line magazine about early American history. I learned about it from this post by Craig Depkin: Historians take on money (Division of Labour, July 7). Depkin's post highlights a Common-place special issue on money.
Revised July 14.
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