From MIT Technology Review · · 1m
A tea label's true story rewrites history
MIT historian Tristan Brown discovered a Boston Tea Party artifact was actually from the 1860s by reading its Chinese text in Cantonese.
In brief
MIT historian Tristan Brown discovered a Boston Tea Party artifact was actually from the 1860s by reading its Chinese text in Cantonese. A tea chest label long believed to be from the seventeen seventy-three Boston Tea Party was actually made nearly a century later, revealing how historical objects acquire false…
A label's false pedigree
Tristan Brown, an associate professor of history at MIT, examined a Chinese tea chest label at Old South Meeting House.
Reading Chinese changed everything
After a year of research, Brown read the Chinese text in Cantonese rather than Mandarin as previous scholars had done.
Tracing the label to California
Working with the Wells family, Brown traced the label to a relative who traveled from Michigan to California during the Gold Rush era before returning to operate the California Tea Store.
How objects gain false authority
Brown says the discovery reveals how ordinary objects acquire historical authority and how historical memory itself is made.
“History is never finished. Even objects that have sat in museums for decades can reveal entirely new stories when we ask new questions.”
The headline
A tea chest label long believed to be from the seventeen seventy-three Boston Tea Party was actually made nearly a century later, revealing how historical objects acquire false authority.
