Samantha Danczyk, “What’s in a name? Story Mapping at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery”
Mentor: Shannon Freire, Anthropology
Poster #146

This research poster explores how ESRI’s ArcGIS StoryMaps application can be utilized as an archaeological storytelling tool. ArcGIS StoryMaps is a web-based tool that facilitates sharing maps and other multimedia content, contextualized with narrative text. The story we are telling is how provisional identifications of individuals are made within the context of the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery (MCPFC) Project. The MCPFC Project is an ongoing research initiative to reverse the anonymity and selective forgetting that has characterized the history of Cemetery 2 (1882- 1925), fulfilling dual missions of ethical research and social justice for those once interred. Using a combination of archaeological data with archival content, images, maps, and narrative text, we can share “how we know what we know” in archaeology. The product of this research, a StoryMap, titled “What’s in a name?”: Making Provisional Identifications at the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery, will be hosted on the MCPFC Project website. By leveraging this state-of-the-art mapping and storytelling technology, we can make the MCPFC visible and remembered.