Consumption and Ceramics at the Rural Homestead of the Raddin-Badgley Family, New Providence, Union County, New Jersey

This thesis examines the expression of consumer behavior and choice through the ceramic assemblage from the Raddin-Badgley house site, a late-18th to mid-19th-century rural homestead located in Berkeley Heights, Union County, New Jersey. Emphasis is placed on the ceramic assemblage recovered from a 4- by 5-meter (13- by 16-foot) cellar hole, the primary feature remaining from the homestead. The analysis was focused on answering three questions. First, how does the ceramic assemblage reflect consumer behavior over time from the earliest period of occupation to the latest? Second, how does the ceramic assemblage reflect the consumption behaviors of specific individuals or family lifecycles? And third, how does the ceramic assemblage reflect the social and economic changes resulting from the establishment of Feltville, the industrial community founded nearby in 1845