Paper Tiger: Historic Newspaper Text from the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Material Culture Collection

Summary

The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC) is located in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. This historic cemetery was in use from 1878 to 1974 and interred Milwaukee County’s indigent. The individuals represented consist mostly of poor European immigrants, subsequent generations, institutionalized residents, and the unclaimed deceased. Included in the array material culture recovered during 1991-1992 and 2013 archaeological excavations are newspaper fragments. These primary documents survive in varying degrees of completeness. Curatorial processes were utilized to preserve remaining text and stabilize the paper artifacts. Newspaper text identification can be used in conjunction with current burial records and historical documentation to aid in dating and identification of this unique category of material culture. When supplemented by the spatial demographic of individual burials from which these artifacts were recovered, temporally sensitive data may be used to identify individual buried in this unmarked cemetery.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Bookends: What We’ve Learned in the Twenty-two Years Separating Archaeological Excavations of the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 230