Water Pitcher Excavated in Anacostia

Between 1885 and 1890

In the early 1980s, archaeologists excavated land along Howard Road, SE before construction began on the Anacostia Metro Station in southeast Washington, DC. Objects unearthed in the excavation revealed nearly 10,000 years of human settlement in the area. Their discoveries included household objects, such as fragments of a water pitcher made by Ridgways Potteries in Stoke-on-Trent, England, ca. 1885-1890. Adorned with brown floral prints, the ivory pitcher suggests the presence of financially secure Anacostians in the late nineteenth-century, as middle to upper class households typically purchased Ridgways pottery for home use. The object’s origin jives with historical records that document 1880 to 1920 as the neighborhood’s time of greatest prosperity.