Less Than Human: The Institutional Origins of the Medical Waste Recovered at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery

Summary

This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Poor Laws enacted in the early 19th-century condemned the most destitute to confinement in almshouses, poor farms, and workhouses. These laws paralleled contemporary Anatomy Acts that turned the 'unclaimed' dead from those institutions over to medical facilities for dissection. In essence, pauperism became punishable by anatomization. Thus, dissection served the dual purpose of reinforcing social identity amongst the lower class and privileging the social identity of upper-class medical students.

This study is an analysis of the material medical waste recovered from graves excavated at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery. My goal is to determine which medical institution in Milwaukee County the waste, and thus the body, originated, in concert with ongoing, collaborative bioarcheological analysis. This study utilizes a presence and absence analysis of types of medical waste found at burial locations alongside bioarcheological evidence for types of post-mortem medical intervention to determine the institutional origin of the medical waste.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2020 SHA General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 391