Emily Braun, “A Tale of Two Coffins: Producing Putative Identifications of Individuals Interred at the Milwaukee Country Poor Farm Cemetery 2 (1885-1925)”
Mentor: Shannon Freire, Anthropology
Poster #29

From 1878 through 1974 Milwaukee County utilized four locations on the Milwaukee County Grounds for burial of more than 7,000 individuals, primarily paupers, the institutionalized, and the unidentified. Two archaeological excavations in 1991 and 1992 and again in 2013 resulted in the recovery of over 2,400 individuals from one of those cemetery locations. The Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Project is an ongoing research initiative to reverse the anonymity and neglect that has characterized the history of this cemetery, fulfilling dual missions of ethical research and social justice for those once interred. One project goal is to identify individuals in the collection by reuniting multiple texts- a skeletal collection with artifacts and archives. Using a case study example, this poster outlines the process of producing a putative identification – the reassociation of an individual skeleton and their associated grave goods with a name. Methods include documentation of human skeletal remains utilizing well-established, standardized osteological methods of data collection, material culture analyses, and archival research. This project’s research adds additional evidence to address an ambiguity between two coffin lot locations, Lots 9209 and 9210, and associated death certificates for Walter Sanders and Jacob Miller. The production of putative identifications allows for individuals erased by disturbance, neglect, and obscuring forces to be included in the historical record. Please note that this poster includes images of human remains.