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The archaeology of New Philadelphia challenges the ways that historical archaeologists study race within communities. In the case of New Philadelphia, the development of historical context helps to get at the meaning of the relationship between identity and material culture. The historical archaeology work at New Philadelphia explores the everyday material culture of settlers of different racial and regional backgrounds and different genders. The gaming pieces found at New Philadelphia may be linked with the game known as mancala. The examination of material culture at New Philadelphia helps to provide a scenario of how goods were used to shape and create a community in a racist society. The National Historic Landmarks Committee recommended designation of New Philadelphia and it received unanimous approval. The secretary of the interior designated it in January 2009.

New Philadelphia is about entrepreneurial success and freedom. This chapter suggests that an interpretive center be built which explains the history and development of New Philadelphia and the contributions of the McWorter family. New Philadelphia's was a multiracial community that survived for almost a century, and any interpretation of the place needs to acknowledge the entire town over its entire existence. Sanctified sites and memorials have a distinctive appearance in New Philadelphia landscape. It is striking how people of different backgrounds who have been oppressed for generations have similar values: freedom and hope for the future as well as a call to remember the struggle. While the many stakeholders unite to preserve New Philadelphia, it is hoped that its core values of hope and freedom become the centerpiece for remembering and valuing this historic place.

Despite the strict 1853 Black Codes, several landowning African American families moved to the outskirts of New Philadelphia and became prominent members of the community. Living in a slave state during the beginning of the American Civil War must have encouraged John Walker to sell his land and livestock. James Washington established his farm close to the New Philadelphia. The 1860 U.S. Federal Census shows that New Philadelphia's town population had increased to about 114 individuals. After the railroad line opened in 1869, people began to slowly move away from New Philadelphia to larger cities and less-developed land west of the Mississippi River. A road sign stood at the site of New Philadelphia beginning in the 1950s, commemorating the multiracial town and the achievements of the McWorter family. It is noted that the history of the town and the development of the multiracial community is an intriguing story.

Many members of the McWorter family planned that part of their family reunion would be held at New Philadelphia, with the cooperation of the New Philadelphia Association (NPA) and the archaeology program. The family scheduled their event with the idea of making a trip to the archaeology site and visiting the family cemetery. Gerald McWorter made the commitment to work with the NPA toward preserving the history of the town and the restoration of the cemetery. The placing of the town on the National Register of Historic Places is described in this chapter, which also considers the nomination of the site as a National Historic Landmark. The McWorter descendants are carefully planning the restoration of the cemetery, including the stabilization of some of the headstones and placing a general memorial in or near the cemetery to commemorate all of those buried, marked and unmarked, who contributed to the history of New Philadelphia.

The Center for American Archaeology (CAA) made several overtures to the New Philadelphia Association (NPA). It could not convince the NPA that they had the resources to sustain a research program at New Philadelphia, which had a unique history that needed to be remembered in the larger public memory. New Philadelphia is located on gently rolling hills with plowed and fallow fields. The artifacts found in a plowed field indicated that more substantial remains existed below the surface. By the end of the survey, the archaeology team had identified, flagged, and collected 7,073 artifacts. The presence of both domestic and architectural artifacts indicated that the Broad Way and Main Streets served as domestic sites. In general, the survey work showed that there was a high probability of locating the past, domestic occupations of the town.

The New Philadelphia Association (NPA) had tried to increase awareness of the place and raise a significant amount of money to save New Philadelphia from future development, but had accumulated only a small amount of cash by 2003. It believed that personal contacts would help it raise money, but it often reached dead ends. New Philadelphia is about race and ethnic history, and it runs counter to consensus history. The National Science Foundation (NSF) financed the project for three years for a total of $226,500. A proposal to the NSF based on the support of the local and descendant communities had been developed. The participants in the archaeology research project were all very anxious in May 2004. It was thought that it was important to help the community to work toward making all of New Philadelphia and its many histories part of the national public memory.

The Barry Apple Festival featured members of the McWorter family as representatives of the community's founder. Terry Martin suggested that the McWorter family members first meet at the archaeology lab at the Illinois State Museum before the festival, so that the goals and products of the first season's work at New Philadelphia could be explained. Racism had taken its toll on the New Philadelphia landscape. The McWorter family was interested in knowing more about Pike County. At the end of the field season, the archaeology team found several foundations related to the McWorter residence. They were all pleased that the University of Illinois team located the remains of parts of the complex once owned by Squire and Louisa McWorter. The physical remains are nice evidence of the McWorter family's being part of the town site. Key places and artifacts were found to help support the stories of education and freedom.

New Philadelphia had at least three generations of building, and people had lived in the town for almost one hundred years. It was a dynamic place, with families building, remodeling, and adding extensions to their houses and tearing down older buildings and temporary log cabins. The archaeological evidence suggests that the Burdick cabin did not last long, maybe a few years, and also provides an indication of the first generation of building, in the form of a log house, in New Philadelphia. Additionally, it shows that while some people left New Philadelphia after 1869, others saw the place as home and invested in the town by rebuilding. Blacksmithing is one of the last entrepreneurial activities that survived in New Philadelphia into the early twentieth century. It is also very clear that New Philadelphia was a place where businesses survived even after the railroad bypassed the town.

The founding of New Philadelphia in west-central Illinois by Free Frank McWorter is a compelling and heroic narrative about freedom and the entrepreneurship of an African American family. Frank worked hard to keep his family together and purchase the freedom of his children. The Illinois territory became a battleground between proslavery southerners and abolitionist northerners. Free African Americans were not on equal footing with whites, which makes the development of a multiracial community such as New Philadelphia an even more compelling story. New Philadelphia is the earliest-known town founded, platted, and registered in a county court house by an African American in the United States. Frank McWorter created a strong foundation for the town to grow and his family to prosper over the next generation, despite the growing racist attitudes in the region.

Many instances of racism in the United States occurred through open declarations of prejudice and overt acts of malevolence and violence. Many other impacts of racism occur in more structural and indirect ways. Such structural forms of racism have been conceptualized as manifestations of “aversive” racism. In a process of aversive racism, members of a dominant social group channel social and economic activities away from a group targeted by racial prejudices. This manipulation of economic and social opportunities, resources, and interactions is typically detrimental to members of the targeted group. It is very difficult to uncover evidence of aversive or structural racism and present a detailed, persuasive account of that data. Lacking detailed evidence, most statements about structural racism are made only as broad-scale observations of the suspected impacts. The difficulty lies in the surreptitious character of aversive racism. One does not find photos of overt acts or transparent minutes of conspiratorial meetings. Instead, a large collection of separate bits of data must be woven together and dots connected to test alternative interpretations against a body of varied, circumstantial evidence. Fennell took up this task in the New Philadelphia Archaeology Project. He was intrigued at the outset with the question of why a railroad bypassed New Philadelphia in 1869.

This chapter describes the history of race and racism in the community. Racialization is the process of assigning people to groups based on physical or cultural characteristics, which helps create the perception of inferior or socially unequal groups. Race emerged as a social classification by which to create “otherness” in much the same way that the concept of savagery developed. Pike County could be a place where one could learn and teach about racial harmony. The situation in nineteenth-century Pike County was not as peaceful and harmonious as many want to believe. The strong public animosity of Pike County and Illinois residents toward blacks could not have made the place comfortable for African Americans in New Philadelphia, or for those who wanted to settle in the area. There was a significant opportunity in Pike County to develop a plan and discuss racism in the community.

Everyone in the community was excited with the work toward developing a more in-depth understanding of the growth, development, and eventual demise of New Philadelphia. During the first field season, the excavations were started in the southwest corner of block 9, lot 5. The geophysical survey did not show a strong anomaly in this place where the Clarks and Butlers lived; however, an overlay of the 1939 aerial photograph reveals the remains of a building in the southwest corner of the lot. Betsy House was a small house that was abandoned by the 1930s. Block 3, lot 4 is another area where a large concentration of domestic artifacts had been found. The first field season located undisturbed features existing below the plow zone, some of them related to the early settlement of the town and others dating to the very late part of the century.