Meet Joe Bagley, Boston’s City Archaeologist

by Jules Thomson

Joe Bagley’s headquarters at the Boston City Archaeology program consists of a few rooms jam-packed with the material history of the area. Native artefacts from thousands of years before European colonization lie bagged in boxes alongside 20th century steel and ceramics. A few display cases offer up some of the juicer finds in the collections: animal skeletons, bullets and flint-strikes, and a peep-show token from the Boston Common, among many others.

Joe shows me a pile of dessicated wood haphhazardly laid out on metal shelving. It is part of what is known as the Seaport Shipwreck, the mudbound remains of a vessel from the 19th century unearthed during routine construction. Obviously, Joe tells me, they would have like to have reconstructed and re-housed the ship’s entire frame, but it was simply not possible with the department’s limited resources.

This limitation becomes more apparent the more I speak to Joe, who occupies the archaeology program’s’s only permanent role; he is accompanied solely by an assistant whose position is continuously, and tenuously, grant-funded. An army of volunteers assist with artifact processing, inventory, and excavation. The backlog from previously excavated sites is daunting; Joe and his assistant Sarah estimated that more than 80% of the archived collections remain to be processed and cataloged. Associated site reports, the final distillation of an excavation, remain to be written and published. Without these results, the collections archived at the facility largely remain in the “dark”, inaccessible to interpretation by researchers.

The City Archaeologist position consists of three main roles: stewardship of vulnerable sites and properties (including excavated materials housed in the department), the excavations themselves, and public education work. These categories are seasonally defined, partly owing to the lack of staff, but also to the seasonal nature of archaeology itself. Excavation and subsequent processing of finds and samples take priority during the summer months, while stewardship and educational outreach are constrained mainly to fall, winter and early spring.

Public outreach is inherent in the job role – The City Archaeology program and staff position itself was initially a public information service established during Boston’s “Big Dig”, which published material from the surveys and excavations undertaken as part of the widespread construction work. A convenient side-effect of excavation is that it tends to generate a large amount of public interest by virtue of its visibility. Additionally, Joe’s educational mandate includes producing publicity, giving public talks, and conducting school visits. In the latter case, this has included delivering video-lectures to several classrooms at once, reaching up to 150 students in a single session.

Internet technology, particularly web 2.0, has revolutionized the department’s relationship with the public in other ways. Joe, who had successfully promoted his own startup business on Etsy prior to his position as City Archaeologist, was hired with a strong social media mandate. He credits a significant surge in public interest during his tenure as a direct effect of this online promotion and networking.

City Archaeology has also carved out a strong presence on the Boston.gov website. This includes a large informational ccomponent for the general public, but also more in-depth research materials such as digitized site reports. Joe has recently begun an ambitious photography and digitization program; with the help of volunteers he plans to photograph 100% of archived site artefacts, a project which, by his own admission, may take several decades to complete.

Perhaps the most apparent theme of our interview was the level of public interest and support for City Archaeology’s mission. “The only complaint we tend to get from the public is that we aren’t doing enough,” Joe says. In light of this groundswell of popular support, I was perplexed as to why the department remains so chronically underfunded: The operational budget is nonexistant – income for supplies and other necessities is generated solely by publications and donations.

One major factor is that the program is barred from soliciting specific donors, due to the their governmental status. Fundraising efforts cannot be targeted toward specific groups, and are consequently imited to general fund drives – which Joe characterized as “not very effective”. One solution to this has been to generate support by proxy in the form of the nonprofit grou Friends of Boston Archaeology. As a 501(c) organization, the Friends are able to solicit donations more effectively on the department’s behalf.

I left our conversation both impressed at what Joe had managed to achieve on a shoestring, and also disappointed at the lack of investment in this obviously very popular heritage resource. The derth of funding mirrors other heritage organizations in government jurisdiction, where priority is given to essential services such as health and infrastructure. It seemed to me that Joe had gone above and beyond his mandate and grown the service as much as possible utilizing low-cost methods such as social media, volunteer support, and creation of a Friends Organization. It remains to be seen if this grassroots spirit will translate into increased support from the municipal government I am hopeful that City Archaeology will be able to leverage their recent outreach success to obtain recognition and funding from the municipal government.