Archaeology Of "Copper Country's" Underrepresented Communities

Summary

This is an abstract from the "POSTER Session 1: A Focus on Cultures, Populations, and Ethnic Groups" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has a rich history of copper mining with many of its narratives celebrating the capitalists and/or the skilled and "unskilled" immigrant workers who worked in the mining industry. This poster synthesizes the archaeological evidence left behind by communities that are not often represented in the popular narrative of Lake Superior's "Copper Country". Michigan Technological University’s 2018 field school excavated four sites in order to explore some underrepresented communities: Michigan Technological University’s first women’s dormitory; a Calumet property that included Chinese-owned laundry and African American owned boarding house, the Phoenix hotel in Eagle River, initial workplace of African-American immigrants, and a Native American copper mining site at the Delaware Mine. This poster presents findings from the four preliminary studies, framing potential directions for future research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• POSTER Session 1: A Focus on Cultures, Populations, and Ethnic Groups   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 444