Today we’d like to introduce you to Evan Woodard.
Hi Evan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always been a fan of history and exploring forgotten places. During the pandemic, I started hiking with my friend Matt to get outside while being safe and stumbled across old bottles scattered throughout the woods. We started collecting them, and I created a new IG account to share their history.
From there, my account blew up, and I started focusing more on the stories behind the artifacts I was finding while using my connections in commercial development to get access to more sites around the city,
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. Starting out it was simple, and I was just having fun sharing bits of history I found. Then it blew up, and I had to evolve to keep up with the type of content that was out there while staying true to myself and my passion. I also learned how to properly document and catalog my finds so that the information was usable when I started donating items to the Baltimore Museum of Industry.
I also ran into many gatekeeping roadblocks from the professional archaeology community, saying what I was doing was looting and so on. But many people came to my defense and pointed out their hypocrisy.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I locate, excavate, and document privies.
Privies were the home’s bathroom and trashcan before public trash pickup.
The items tossed into privies can tell you about the economic status of the homeowner, what they ate, were they sick, and even if they had kids. There is so much information in these confined spaces that are buried underground and often scooped out during construction. My goal is to work with property developers to save history without holding up any of their work.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Say yes more than no. You never know who you’ll meet along the way and how they can help you achieve your goals
Contact Info:
- Website: https://salvagearc.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/salvagearc
- Facebook: facebook.com/salvagearc
- Youtube: youtube.com/salvagearc
