Families Inside and Out: Family Relationships and Institutional Healthcare at a Leper Hospital in St. Croix, USVI

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

From 1888 to 1954, the Danish colonial and later US governments of St. Croix operated a leper hospital on the island. Residents were often admitted for extended periods of time with many living there for decades prior to death and burial in the Christiansted Cemetery. Throughout their residency, patients likely formed family-like relationships within the hospital community and maintained relationships with outside family members, while being excluded from former aspects of family life due to their condition. Census records reveal potential family-level relationships between hospital residents, and newspaper accounts provide evidence for in-hospital events incorporating outside family members. Grave location, demographic data, and mortuary treatment recorded for burials at Christiansted Cemetery were used to identify differential treatment of individuals with leprosy compared to uninfected family members. This analysis reveals how the marginalized residents found and were excluded from family relationships within and outside of the hospital.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2022 SHA Poster Submissions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology