Investigating Choices: The Changing Medicinal Assemblage of the Carpenter Street Site in Springfield, Illinois

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Disability Wisdom for the Covid-19 Pandemic" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Over time out society has changed and evolved what is seen as ‘sick’ and what can be seen as a ‘cure’. This paper seeks to examine the health and hygiene assemblage at the Carpenter Street site, an excavation site in Springfield, Illinois. The site was used in a historic context for the initial settlement of Portuguese immigrants, later used as a rental property, and most notably one of the sites of arson and destruction during the 1908 race riot in Springfield. The material culture of health and hygiene products across the occupation indicate the breadth of concerns that the tenants of Carpenter Street dealt with while they attempted to navigate a society profoundly biased to able-bodied men of Western European descent. Examination of the assemblage the residents left behind shows efforts to comply with societal norms, even when they themselves existed counter to the predominant societal narrative.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021   •
• Disability Wisdom for the Covid-19 Pandemic

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology