People that no one had use for, had nothing to give to, no place to offer: The Milwaukee County Institution Grounds Poor Farm Cemetery

Based on Wisconsin's Territorial Act of 1838 and state statutes enacted in 1849 provision for the welfare of the poor became the legal responsibility of local governing including the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors. The various formal institutions of Milwaukee County were established to provide care for the indigent, sick, orphaned and homeless as well as the burial of individuals from those categories. From 1878 through 1974 Milwaukee County utilized four locations on the Milwaukee County Grounds for burial of more than 7000 individuals. Two archaeological excavations in 1991 and 1992 and in 2013 resulted in the recovery of over 2800 individuals from one of those cemetery locations. This symposium presents historical, archaeological and osteological research related to those excavations. Specific paper topics include analyses of historical documents and material culture assemblages, spatial patterning within the cemetery limits, the relationship between Milwaukee County and local medical schools, molecular identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in human skeletal remains, evidence for autopsy or medical school use of individual corpses, a refined method of juvenile age assessment, the application of strontium analysis for the establishment of identity, and the application of portable X-ray fluorescence technology to the excavation and analysis of human remains.