$1.87 Each, Four Feet Long and Over; $0.87 Each, Less than Four Feet: A Spatial Analysis of Coffin Type and Coffin Hardware from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery.

Summary

Excavations at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC) in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin in 1991 and 1992 recovered 1649 individuals associated with Milwaukee County’s practice from the mid-1800s through 1974 of providing burial for institutional residents, unidentified or unclaimed individuals sent from the Coroner’s Office, and community poor. In 2013, Historic Resource Management Services of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee recovered an additional 632 individual coffin burials representing over 800 individuals. Richards (1997) proposed a land use timeline for the portion of the cemetery excavated in 1991 and 1992. This poster presents the consolidated data from all excavated graves to date. In particular, we focus on associating the distribution of coffin hardware and coffin type with other classes of material culture in order to interpret spatial patterning and refine the land use history of the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17162