Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This poster session brings together faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students who have been contributing to the Settlement Ecology of Early Rural America (SEERA) project over the last 7 years. This is a community-based research project that seeks to understand the transition to commercial farming in the U.S. during the late 1800s and how it related to farmstead and community socioeconomics, landscapes, demography, and memorializing of the dead in Madison and Onondaga Counties in NY and Boulder County, CO. Previous work has established the timing of commercialization in Madison County and the impacts it had on gendered labor patterns, relationships between farming and labor, household consumption practices, and mortality patterns. Posters in this session delve into changes in socioeconomic disparities, landscapes, health, and cemeteries during the transition in NY. In addition, several posters come from work that is beginning to explore the conditions for those moving west to Colorado at this time, including the relationship between socioeconomics and immigration and the landscapes of entertainment and vice that sprang up in the west around these newly settled farmers, ranchers, and miners.

Other Keywords
Historical Archaeology • Landscape Archaeology • North America: Northeast and Midatlantic • North America: Rocky Mountains

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-8 of 8)

  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Exploring the Relationship Between Identity and Burial at the Welsh Union Church Cemetery in Madison County, New York (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Victor Prieto.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster details current research at the Welsh Union Church Cemetery site in Nelson, New York. From its earliest known interment in 1809 to its continued role as an active burial ground today, this cemetery indexes the history and contributions of many Welsh...

  • Home on the (Front) Range: Settlement Ecology of Late 19th Century Homesteaders in Flatland Boulder County (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Peter Larsen.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research focuses on patterns of settlement location choices among homesteading farmers and ranchers in non-mountainous Boulder County, Colorado. This work uses household and agricultural data from the 1885 Colorado state census and an 1880 property map, analyzed...

  • Landscapes of Entertainment and Vice in Late 19th-Century Boulder County, CO (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alexander Leigh.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the late 19th century, mining camps, ranches and farms, and towns of various sizes sprang up in the mountains and along the front range of what is now Boulder County, Colorado, some creating lasting communities and others being abandoned. Entertainment was essential,...

  • Mapping Mortality in Late Nineteenth Century Madison County, NY (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Elena Miller.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Where an individual lives affects the shape and path of that person’s life including their death. Looking at rural towns in Madison County, New York in the late 1800s, we focus on the spatial components related to the causes of death to further understand health and...

  • Maternal mortality in urban and rural communities in late 19th-century Upstate New York (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Reardon.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Our study examines urban vs. rural and temporal trends in maternal mortality in the context of a general transition from subsistence to commercial farming in rural communities and increasing urbanization in late 19th-century upstate New York. Maternal mortality, the...

  • A Tale of Three Towns: Landscapes of Inequality in Madison County, NY During and After the Transition to Commercial Farming, 1850-1920 (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Eric Jones.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this research, I use agricultural and household census data from 1850-1880 and USDA data from the early 20th century in conjunction with historical maps to compare the types of farms and surplus production across three towns in Madison County, NY: Fenner, Nelson, and...

  • ‘Til death do us part? Effects of marital status on patterns of mortality in 19th-century Upstate New York (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sharon DeWitte.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Numerous studies of 20th- and 21st-century populations have produced evidence of a health-promoting effect of marriage. Fewer studies have examined this effect in older historical populations. In an effort to contribute to our understanding of the potentially...

  • Wealth disparity and soil erosion: Echoes of 19th century wealth in modern agricultural lands in Madison County, NY (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabrielle Perry.

    This is an abstract from the "Living and Dying in 19th-Century Farming Communities During Westward Expansion, from New England to the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the 19th century in upstate New York, waves of immigration from New England, Western Europe, and the South created a landscape of wealth disparity. This research analyzes how that wealth divide experienced by farmers in Madison County relates to the physiography...