Condom Packaging

3 Merry Widows (Agnes-Mabel-Beckie) Prophylactic Tin
Theresa Barnett

The 3 Merry Widows prophylactic tin made in the early 1900’s -1930 demonstrates the endless possibilities students have when they participant in courses such as the archeological field schools offered by IUSB. This prophylactic tin was unearthed during an archaeological field school in the summer of 2010 conducted by Indiana University South Bend Anthropology Department. Students had to be enrolled in the course in order to participate in the field school, although the field school did offer an open to public event day where people from the community came to observe and ask questions, where students and facility happily engaged the visitors. Besides learning the proper fieldwork techniques, students also have a sense of being on journey into the past through artifacts that may be uncovered in your fieldwork. As a class we had no clue what to expect when we opened each section at the 800 West Washington Street site, each section contained different artifacts. When our group unearthed the condom tin, we did not know at first what the small tin was. Some of us thought that it might have been a makeup container of some sort but no one even thought of it possibly being a condom tin. The key to these types of field schools are promote deeper learning, although we ultimately did not know what the tin was, it intrigued us to discover what the object was, this was done by taking the item back to campus and doing research. The 3 Merry Widow tin and a suffrage pin (which was also recovered from this same site) became objects of research for paper as a joint project between an IUSB Anthropology professor and student from the field school. Although the condom was not found on campus it still is an object that represents a part of history for IUSB.

When you think of condoms today you think of latex condoms, which are disposable and can be found on campus in the Student Activity Center, at your local drugstore, you do not think about rubber cement reusable condoms that would have been in the 3 Merry Widows tin. The campus has a display they where students or visitors may take condoms, at no charge, thus promoting safe sex. I learned in-depth information about the 3 Merry Widows condom tin and what the contents would have been, by reading the article written by the Anthropology Professor and IUSB student. Although this tin may not be directly linked to IUSB campus, the manner in which it was discovered and later researched is directly related. The field school where the condom tin was discovered started the history of connecting the artifact from the early 1900’s to IUSB through student discovery and journal articles. The condom tin and IUSB will be connected in the future through exhibits at the local history museum or exhibits like the one here on campus where it is currently being displayed.

Bibliography
Gibson, Rebecca, and James M. VanderVeen. "CONTROL OF THEIR BODIES, CONTROL OF THEIR VOTES: PINS AND PROPHYLACTICS TELL THE SUFFRAGETTE STORY." INDIANA ARCHAEOLOGY: 56.