Tankard 1792 - 1793

This Tankard was crafted by George Giles in Philadelphia. Although the tankard appears to be a functional object, it can also be seen as a signifier of wealth and status. In eighteenth-century America, access to luxury goods like silver tankards was largely determined by class and race. While wealthy white colonists could commission such items, enslaved Africans were often forced to mine the very materials used in their production. Native American communities, dispossessed of their land, were frequently excluded from this economy altogether. Look closely and consider the hands that shaped this vessel and whose labor funded it. Who drank from it, and who was excluded from its contents? The tankard’s polished surface reflects the complex and often painful realities of colonial American society. It asks us to confront the legacy of inequality that continues to shape our world.