Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2019

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context," at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Developed as part of the broader human endeavor to gain mastery over the universe – including the human body – through the principles of scientific empiricism, the theory and practice of medicine has been forged through historical approaches to care. Archaeology is uniquely positioned to trace the emergence and development of modern medicine through the objects and spaces of its practice and their interaction with individual bodies. The papers in this symposium focus on the interface between mind, body, and environment. How do bodies interact with medical objects and institutions? How did people build community and shape their daily life practices to care for their minds and bodies and those of their loved ones? How were structural barriers experienced in daily life? Shifting focus from triumphalist narratives of medical progress onto everyday practices and specific settings, the papers in this symposium expand, qualify, and challenge commonly accepted histories of medicine.

Other Keywords
Medicine • Industrial Archaeology • Coal Mining • Identity • embodiment • Structural Violence • disability • labor archaeology • Arkansas • asylums

Temporal Keywords
19th Century • 20th Century • 19th Century - 20th Century • 1850's-Present

Geographic Keywords
Coahuila (State / Territory) • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Texas (State / Territory) • Sonora (State / Territory) • United States of America (Country) • Chihuahua (State / Territory) • Nuevo Leon (State / Territory) • Delaware (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-5 of 5)

  • Documents (5)
Documents
  • Cleaning Up "A Blot On Civilization": Examining Archaeological Evidence Of The Medical And Scientific Regulation Of Midwifery During The Progressive Era (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer M Saunders.

    This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Our dominant historical narrative teaches us that the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a period of sweeping reform that resulted in universal improvements to the well-being of people in the United States. Archaeological evidence has the potential to bring to light...

  • "Cures after Doctors Fail": A Four-Field Approach to Medicated Pain Relief in Early 20th Century America (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer A. Porter-Lupu.

    This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In this paper, I take a four field approach to medicated pain relief in early 20th century America, analyzing the way personal narratives of health and illness were created and experienced through pain relief testimonials and marketing techniques. Medical and biological anthropologists have studied the...

  • Hands of Mercy: Methods of Healing Practice by Frontier Nuns (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Breanna M Wilbanks.

    This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. In the 19th century, nuns of the Sisters of Mercy traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas, the border of the U.S. and Indian Territory, to establish a convent and school for the burgeoning frontier town. With an ever-growing population and few doctors to meet the medical demands of the people, the Sisters served...

  • Material Culture and Structural Violence: Reframing Evidence of the Social Gradient in Industrial Contexts (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kyla Cools.

    This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Coal mining is an industry which has historically exposed laborers to a variety of environmental and occupational health hazards which resulted in injury and/or physical disability. These health hazards however, did not impact all laborers involved in coal mining equally. As a coal mining company town...

  • "Space, Division, Classification": Gender, Class, and Race in the Treatment of Insanity in 19th-Century New England Lunatic Asylums (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Madeline Bourque Kearin.

    This is an abstract from the "Constructing Bodies and Persons: Health and Medicine in Historic Social Context" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The nineteenth-century lunatic asylum was envisioned as a curative environment, which would administer salutary influences to the mind through the medium of sensory experience. Bucolic vistas and attractively furnished wards, calming music and freedom from the disturbing racket of urban life, appetizing...