Care of the Body

Seneca Village was a predominantly African American multi-ethnic community that lasted from 1825 to 1857. According to the 1855 Census, William Godfrey Wilson, his wife Charlotte, and their children were an African-American family who owned the plot of land where their house was built. Among the objects recovered from the buried ruins of this house was a broken Sarsaparilla bottle, an intact perfume bottle, and a toothbrush handle made of bone. All of the objects in this section contributed to the Wilson family’s quality of life. The economic and cultural dimensions of these objects can provide a more nuanced understanding of what the everyday lives of members of this community may have looked like. These medicinal and hygienic products stand against the perception of Seneca Village as “squatters” living in a “shantytown,” which was the image popularized by newspapers at the time. In fact, living conditions in Seneca Village were better than many contemporary communities in southern Manhattan. While the perfume bottle and the toothbrush handle reflect more upper-class sensibilities, the Sarsaparilla bottle shows that the Wilsons were also consumers of a product that was marketed heavily to the working class. This contrast reveals that the economic position of the Wilsons was dynamic and not easily fixed into a static narrative, such as one that might be provided by a textbook or a census record. 

While it might be difficult today to think of life without regular access to commodities such as toothbrushes, trustworthy medical prescriptions (of which medical Sarsaparilla does not fully qualify), and perfume bottles, these products were far from readily available prior to the late nineteenth century. Examining these objects therefore allows us to better envision what some of the challenges of life in nineteenth-century New York might have been. Moreover, understanding how Seneca Villagers participated within larger American histories serves as a powerful reminder that Seneca Village did not exist in a vacuum. It was not just the territory that made way for Central Park. Rather, the people of Seneca Village were New Yorkers, ones who lived in a New York neighborhood. The erasure of Seneca Village was not inevitable and it is impossible to detach Seneca Village from its role within not just African-American history, but American history as well.

Works Cited

Fournier, Tom. 2019. “Medicine During the War of 1812.” Forty-First Regiment Blog. http://www.fortyfirst.org/blog/medicine-during-the-war-of-1812.

A medicine cabinet from 1813

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2021-01-12T20:16:34+00:00
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