The Scrapbook: A "Conundrum of the Archives"

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "In Small Things Remembered II: An Archaeology of Affective Objects and Other Narratives", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Analysis of the twice-excavated Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC) has documented several types and varieties of postmortem skeletal interventions attributed to autopsy and medical dissection. These interments have been associated with the local medical establishment, including medical and dental colleges. Recent research has identified a significant reduction in burial complexity in the northeastern section of the cemetery used between 1918 and 1925. Critically, fewer anatomized individuals are represented archaeologically in this section than are documented historically. To explicate these behavioral changes in the archaeological record, Marquette University archives were utilized to provide data about contemporaneous anatomical teaching practices and the subsequent disposition of remains. Central to this research is a dental student’s scrapbook, replete with the ephemera of “bright college days.” This artifact, a vital window into the entanglements and processes that produced the MCPFC, has created as many questions as it answers.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• In Small Things Remembered II: An Archaeology of Affective Objects and Other Narratives

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow