Glass Stemware (Archaeological Find)

Glass Stemware

Glassware must have played a humble but consistent role in the backdrop of Harvard’s history, with glass tableware facilitating lively discussions over shared meals. The small fragment seen here is a stemware piece from the 17th, 18th, or 19th century Harvard landscape. Perhaps it too sat on a Harvard table, witnessing meals and conversations amongst past Harvard students and teachers.
      This piece hints at just such a history but reveals little about its own role. The fragment does not have a bowl or base to further identify its use or morphology. The only indication of its use as tableware comes from the stem connection that remains intact (Bickerton 2000:12). Archaeologists can then look to glass types to identify the date and production context of a shard.
     This stemware fragment is likely soda-lime glass. With the introduction of new production techniques at the end of the 18th century, soda lime glass became one of the most common glass forms, replacing colorless leaded glass for most tableware forms (Jones et al 1985).
      Around the same time, in 1818, the New England Glass Company began production in East Cambridge, practically in Harvard’s backyard. As seen in an 1854 sketch, East Cambridge’s landscape must have been dominated by the facility’s looming chimney, with 19th century Harvard life playing out below (Cambridge Historical Commission, 2021). As an historical item for archaeologists today, an item of everyday use for its contemporaries, and perhaps an economic catalyst in 18th century Cambridge, glass fragments such as this stemware piece contribute important albeit quiet details about early life at Harvard.

Glass Stemware

Shard of glass stemware

2021.6.5

Level 6

60 cm

Glass

Fragment

Stemware

1

1.8

2.8

1.9