Flow Blue China
As a freshman at MIT, one of the classes I took was Introduction to Archaeology (MIT students are required to take a minimum number of humanities classes to keep them well-rounded - plus I’ve always thought archaeology was fascinating - in high school I flirted with the idea of becoming an archaeologist).
Anyway, for part of the class we got to work on a mini-archaeological dig, excavating the ground next to the doomed Building 20. We turned up all sorts of interesting stuff like a shoe (leather, with a heel) and various pieces of ceramic. That part of Cambridge is built on landfill, you see. So just a foot or two below the surface you find last century’s garbage!
Another part of the class required us to write a research paper. For the paper, we could choose to make use of the artifacts unearthed from the previous dig, done where the present Biology Building is now. I discovered several pieces of Flow Blue china in the midst of those artifacts, and since my grandmother was a collector of Flow Blue, I decided to write my paper on it.
I was learning HTML at about the same time, and decided to post my paper online. What’s funny is that this was (and is) probably my most-read piece of writing ever! I even got asked by somebody running a newsletter if they could reprint it! There are still references to that old HTML file out there on the net.
Then Sunday I got feedback on this site from a very nice lady asking if I had a working link to the article (my MIT account hosting the original version long having been disconnected). I decided, given its popularity (for whatever reason), I might as well put it back up again - this time with scans of the sketches I made for the project.
So if you’re curious, here’s my little freshman paper on Flow Blue china.
