During the Potato Famine of the nineteenth century, about one million Irish people perished from ... more During the Potato Famine of the nineteenth century, about one million Irish people perished from starvation and disease, while more than two million fled the country in fear and desperation, with some 850,000 landing in New York City. After a difficult journey, many found themselves impoverished, taking dangerous jobs, and battling miserable living conditions in an unfamiliar urban landscape. These circumstances resulted in high rates of illness, injury, and death compared with other immigrant groups and native-born Americans.
In this profound study, Meredith B. Linn explores three kinds of afflictions—typhus fever, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries—that disproportionately affected Irish immigrants, tracing how existing medical ideas and technologies intersected with American prejudices to further conspire against this once culturally distinct group. Linn makes a compelling case for how Americans’ interpretations of the visible bodily changes wrought by typhus fever and injuries contributed to essentializing and dehumanizing biases against these new immigrants, while tuberculosis—with its symptoms of fatigue, pallor, and emaciation—enabled Americans to see individuals beyond stereotypes and to recognize the equal humanity of the Irish.
Drawing upon extensive archaeological records, folkloric sources, and historical documents, Linn presents what she terms a “visceral historical archaeology”—a perspective rooted in historical archaeology and medical anthropology—to illuminate the experiences of these immigrants. She investigates their health-related ideas and practices and reveals their efforts to heal themselves using popular remedies from Ireland and several new American commodities. Laden with heartrending stories from real working-class Irish and their American doctors, this richly illustrated book provides new perspectives about urban experience in the context of the Irish diaspora and invites contemplation about how illness, injury, and healing have affected the lives and reception of newcomers to the US.
Advocacy and Archaeology: Urban Intersections, edited by Kelly M. Britt and Diane F. George, 2023
Advocacy and collaboration with stakeholders have been important components of the Seneca Villag... more Advocacy and collaboration with stakeholders have been important components of the Seneca Village project (now the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History or IESVH) since Diana Wall, Nan Rothschild, and Cynthia Copeland founded it in the 1990s. The project has involved people of diverse backgrounds and promoted the village’s historical significance as a stable, middle-class, 19th-century African American and European immigrant community, among the earliest landowners New York City “removed” through eminent domain. This work has begun to bring the village forward into public memory, but it is still under-recognized. Meanwhile, the digital revolution has proliferated misconceptions about it. This paper discusses the history of the project and the ongoing collaboration among the IESVH, several academic institutions, and a private, non-profit park conservancy to research and increase awareness of the village’s importance in our national heritage.
Archaeologists frequently discover 19th-century patent- and proprietary-medicine bottles at sites... more Archaeologists frequently discover 19th-century patent- and proprietary-medicine bottles at sites across the U.S. The unregulated medical mixtures once contained in these vessels were immensely popular. Interpreting how and why people used them is challenging, however, and complicated by assumptions that they were lesser alternatives to physicians’ prescriptions and consumers used them as directed in advertisements. This article questions these assumptions by considering patent medicines within the context of their time. It also examines consumers’ perspectives and how culture, local context, needs, and material qualities of medicines affect health-related decisions. Patent medicines found in association with Irish-immigrant residences at the Five Points in Manhattan form a case study with broader implications. This article proposes that studies of 19th-century patent medicines would benefit from beginning with the premises that they were reasonable medical options that consumers used in ways that resonated with their own cultural perspectives and addressed their specific health concerns.
Archaeology of Identity and Dissonance edited by Diane F. George and Bernice Kurchin, 2019
This chapter explores the issue of identity in Seneca Village, a nineteenth-century, middle-class... more This chapter explores the issue of identity in Seneca Village, a nineteenth-century, middle-class, Black community located in what is now Central Park in New York City. The city evicted the residents in 1857, and until recently this important village was forgotten. Using information from historical documents and material culture (including landscaping and both the form and decoration of dishes) excavated from the site in 2011, this study examines the intersection of class, race, and nationality. The evidence suggests that the identity of at least one family there was made of many strands: they may have identified themselves as members of the black middle class, as Americans, as African Americans, and perhaps even as Africans, depending on the situation and the audience. Skillful use of these strands may have been one way in which this and other village families attempted to ameliorate oppression and to make a place for themselves.
Archaeology of Identity and Dissonance, edited by Diane F. George and Bernice Kurchin, 2019
During the mid- to late-nineteenth century, millions of Irish people emigrated to the U.S. fleein... more During the mid- to late-nineteenth century, millions of Irish people emigrated to the U.S. fleeing hardship and searching for a better life. Much has been written about how they faced great anti-Irish prejudice and yet forged an Irish American identity in cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. A previously under-examined dimension of this struggle is how these predominately rural newcomers adjusted to urban life. This chapter begins to address this issue, focusing on how Irish immigrants in mid-nineteenth-century New York City manipulated their appearances. Using evidence from archaeological sites, immigrant letters, historical newspapers, and folklore archives, this study shows how some Irish immigrants utilized cosmetic hair preparations as transformative substances to style new urban Irish American identities and to manage interactions with employers, native-born peers, and other Irish community members.
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA), 2013
In reading J. J. Carver’s excellent suggestions for how to better enable archaeology and large ur... more In reading J. J. Carver’s excellent suggestions for how to better enable archaeology and large urban infrastructure projects to progress to mutual benefit, I found myself in enthusiastic agreement with his point that ‘professional working relationships are the most important challenge for archaeology in mega projects’ and that we must convince project directors, engineers, and site teams that archaeology ‘can enhance the value of the project they are building’ (4). This is especially crucial in cities like New York City (NYC), where government protection of cultural heritage is weaker than in London and where the city’s identity is tied more to its future than its past. In future-oriented cities, it is thus necessary to take Carver’s point even further and to engage people involved in all levels of urban planning and development, both at project sites and within the academic programs that train them, to help bring about a cultural shift in attitudes towards the value of archaeology.
Archaeologists at a few sites in the United States have uncovered numerous soda-water bottles in ... more Archaeologists at a few sites in the United States have uncovered numerous soda-water bottles in features associated with the dwellings of 19th-century Irish immigrants. This study focuses particularly on findings from the Five Points, New York City’s most notorious 19th-century working-class neighborhood, and offers explanations for what may potentially be a more widespread pattern of soda-water usage among Irish immigrants. Based on information gathered from historical and folkloric archives and attention to the materiality of soda water, it is argued that soda water resonated with Irish immigrants, evoking varied Irish traditional understandings of water, and offering new possibilities to address new Irish concerns in the U.S. By purchasing, selling, and consuming soda water, Irish immigrants managed issues including health, nostalgia, temperance, Irish nationalism, status, and identity. Soda water acted as a fluid substance providing relief for sickness and homesickness, and facilitated the creation of new Irish American identities.
This article presents an Irish magical cure for scrofula, reported by the New York Times in 1858,... more This article presents an Irish magical cure for scrofula, reported by the New York Times in 1858, as a means to discuss the significance of Irish magical healing in the U.S. and how archaeologists might be able to recognize its material traces. Because of how magic has been historically understood in the West, 19th-century Americans used examples of Irish magic to bolster anti-Irish stereotypes and behaviors. Magical healing, nevertheless, was an important and effective strategy for the Irish who suffered from a dramatic increase in illnesses and injuries in the U.S. It was an integral part of their worldview, and it influenced how they interpreted new healing commodities like patent medicines. This article encourages archaeologists to reconsider the importance of magical healing in the past and the present.
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA), 2013
Interview conducted by Hana Koriech and Meredith Linn, 27th July 2013 at Columbia University in N... more Interview conducted by Hana Koriech and Meredith Linn, 27th July 2013 at Columbia University in New York City.
This summer we had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with three of the most celebrated New York City (NYC) archaeologists, Drs. Anne-Marie Cantwell, Nan Rothschild, and Diana diZerega Wall. Each is well-known for their exemplary teaching careers, outstanding publications, and direction of some of the city’s most important excavations. The three are also long-time friends and collaborators. In a lively afternoon chat, they shared their more personal experiences in NYC archaeology over the past several decades, their reflections about how it has changed, and their ideas for the future.
Envisioning Seneca Village (envisioningsenecavillage.github.io/) is a digital project that imagin... more Envisioning Seneca Village (envisioningsenecavillage.github.io/) is a digital project that imagines what this significant nineteenth-century village might have looked like around the year 1855, shortly before its destruction for the building of Central Park. The project is anchored in existing and ongoing research of many historians, archaeologists, educators, and descendants about this community of which there are no surviving photos, drawings, or above-ground traces. We seek to amplify this scholarship, help visitors to learn more about the village, catalyze new research, and above all, honor the people of Seneca Village and the community they created.
This is a living project, so please visit again in the future to see updates and new features.
Project team: Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang
2005 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Society, Washington, D.C., 2005
From 1845 to 1855 Irish immigrants outnumbered all other ethnic groups in hospital and mental asy... more From 1845 to 1855 Irish immigrants outnumbered all other ethnic groups in hospital and mental asylum admissions in New York City. Participants in the Irish diaspora, the majority of these immigrants had been from rural areas in Ireland. Many had been stricken by famine and famine-related diseases at home, very possibly harsh trans-Atlantic voyages, and difficult lives in urban slum areas once they arrived in New York. It is no wonder that they suffered physically and mentally under these conditions. These facts are well known, but what is not known is how these immigrants attempted to actively deal with their medical afflictions and what their experiences of treatment were. Understanding healthcare strategies and experiences can provide great insight into both social and personal lives, as many recent works in medical anthropology have clearly demonstrated. This paper aims to better understand mid-19th-century Irish immigrant lived experiences and occasions of agency through a close examination of hospital records from New York Hospital and Bellevue Hospital, both of which were originally located close to the main areas of immigrant settlement. Written by physicians and surgeons, these records are full of sensory and statistical details. This paper will suggest that attention to details, such as how the patients expressed their complaints, how they reacted verbally and physically to various treatments, their particular illness, age, occupation, and marital status, may allow the researcher to exhume fragments of Irish immigrant personal narratives and physical experiences long buried in these dusty and neglected texts.
2006 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Sacramento, CA , 2006
This paper examines the healthcare strategies of mid 19th-century rural Irish immigrants in New Y... more This paper examines the healthcare strategies of mid 19th-century rural Irish immigrants in New York City as a lens for understanding the creation of Irish-American identities in urban America as something distinct from, yet intimately related to, their identities in their colonized homeland. Using archaeological evidence from Manhattan and first-person narratives from letters, this paper argues that mid 19th-century Irish immigrants actively approached healthcare, defeating British and middle-class American portrayals of them as incompetent and passive. Irish immigrants selectively incorporated new American strategies into their traditional medical toolkit, and infused American culture with values and practices from the "old sod."
2007 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Williamsburg, VA, 2007
This paper examines the strategies of Irish immigrants in mid 19th C New York City to remedy heal... more This paper examines the strategies of Irish immigrants in mid 19th C New York City to remedy health problems so rampant in the city and within the Irish immigrant community at the time. Archaeological evidence from the Five Points and medical case histories from New York Hospital reveal that the Irish in New York utilized both folk medicine from their old country and new resources from their new country. Their selective strategies suggest that healthcare was vital and contested site where these immigrants worked out their identities as both Irish and American and came to be Irish-Americans.
2008 Annual Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG), Columbia University, 2008
The ways in which families treat childhood illnesses at home are often elusive to the researcher,... more The ways in which families treat childhood illnesses at home are often elusive to the researcher, but they are extremely significant. Not only can home practices mean life or death for little ones, but also they tend to be conservative and successful at transmitting culturally specific ideas about illness, healing, and the body to the next generation. How to properly care for children, therefore, is frequently a point of conflict in cases of cultural interaction, such as those between immigrant groups and their host societies or colonialists and indigenous populations. This paper investigates the case of the first large group of immigrants in the post-Revolutionary U.S. in the U.S.’s largest city: the Irish in New York City. Irish folklore about popular medicinal practices is crucial for uncovering Irish agency in medical case records from NY hospitals and physicians and for decoding archaeological clues in the form of bottles and floral and faunal remains. The combination of these formal and informal sources of evidence is used to reconstruct and reconsider the home remedies and healthcare strategies that Irish immigrants used to transform sick American-born children into healthy Irish-Americans.
2019 Annual Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeological Group (TAG), Syracuse, NY, 2019
During the nineteenth century, the population and spatial extent of New York City expanded rapidl... more During the nineteenth century, the population and spatial extent of New York City expanded rapidly, both creating more jobs and enabling employers to place greater productivity demands on an increasing number of wage-based unskilled laborers and service workers. Technologies like the clock, which brought about more exacting measurement of time, and the railroad, which dramatically accelerated the pace of travel and eliminated some seasonal slow-downs, contributed to increasing expectations of how much a person could (and should) produce per day and transformed the way that people perceived time. This transformation was not a smooth process, however. Laborers, many of whom came from rural areas and who were accustomed to seasonal changes in the pace of work, resented and resisted employers’ attempts to control their time. Their efforts ranged from establishing more independent communities on the rural fringes of the city to creating intentional labor slow-downs on the grounds that employers’ encouragement of competition between workers was unethical and anti-social. This paper will consider how greater attention to time and temporality can help us to better understand the lives of workers in nineteenth-century New York City, particularly Irish immigrants and African Americans, who, in turn, provide inspiration for how and why we should consider a slower approach to our own research endeavors.
2024 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Oakland, CA, 2024
In 1825, two years before Emancipation in New York State and in a climate of intense anti-Black r... more In 1825, two years before Emancipation in New York State and in a climate of intense anti-Black racism, two Black men purchased land north of the urban core of New York City. Over the next three decades, other Black men and women and European (mostly Irish) immigrants also purchased land there. Together they created a community that included three churches, a school, planted fields, and dozens of homes. In 1857, the City of New York used the right of eminent domain and an argument about the “greater good” to take their land, raze their village, and build Central Park. The village did not re-form elsewhere and was neglected in city histories. This paper focuses on what our historical archaeological investigations have revealed about this forgotten community, particularly how in their everyday interactions with one another and the local environment, Seneca Villagers cultivated a thriving and relatively self-sufficient and sheltered community.
2023 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Lisbon, Portugal, 2023
Historians have long noted that the majority of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine (1845-1... more Historians have long noted that the majority of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine (1845-1852) came from rural areas in Ireland and, surprisingly, settled in American cities, quickly becoming an urbanized population. Explanations for this phenomenon have centered on social factors, which are certainly significant, but they have neglected the physical landscape and often assumed all areas of American cities were highly urbanized. Using the nation’s largest city—and what by 1860 was dubbed “the most Irish city in the Union”—as a case study, this paper takes a closer look at the particular locations and environments in New York City in which mid-19th-century Irish immigrants clustered. It combines evidence from documents, folklore, and archaeological excavations to consider the features that likely attracted Irish immigrants to certain locations and how they utilized local resources, including continuing rural practices of plant cultivation and animal husbandry.
2012 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Baltimore, MD, 2012
When it comes to healing, medical anthropologists have shown that the line between science and ma... more When it comes to healing, medical anthropologists have shown that the line between science and magic is blurry. Even surgeons, for example, perform pre-operative rituals aiming to increase their success, while ordinary individuals employ a variety of magical-medicinal home remedies hoping to avoid seeking professional care. These remedies are significant, especially in cases of immigration. Home remedies not only form the first line of defense against illness and injury (to which immigrants are particularly prone due to difficult working and living conditions), but also convey culturally-specific worldviews that can exacerbate conflict between immigrants and host populations. This paper investigates the magical-medicinal practices of Irish immigrants in 19th-century New York City using a combination of archaeological, historical, and folkloric records. Greater understanding of these practices can expand archaeologists’ interpretations of material culture, revealing extraordinary meanings and uses of seemingly ordinary artifacts.
During the Potato Famine of the nineteenth century, about one million Irish people perished from ... more During the Potato Famine of the nineteenth century, about one million Irish people perished from starvation and disease, while more than two million fled the country in fear and desperation, with some 850,000 landing in New York City. After a difficult journey, many found themselves impoverished, taking dangerous jobs, and battling miserable living conditions in an unfamiliar urban landscape. These circumstances resulted in high rates of illness, injury, and death compared with other immigrant groups and native-born Americans.
In this profound study, Meredith B. Linn explores three kinds of afflictions—typhus fever, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries—that disproportionately affected Irish immigrants, tracing how existing medical ideas and technologies intersected with American prejudices to further conspire against this once culturally distinct group. Linn makes a compelling case for how Americans’ interpretations of the visible bodily changes wrought by typhus fever and injuries contributed to essentializing and dehumanizing biases against these new immigrants, while tuberculosis—with its symptoms of fatigue, pallor, and emaciation—enabled Americans to see individuals beyond stereotypes and to recognize the equal humanity of the Irish.
Drawing upon extensive archaeological records, folkloric sources, and historical documents, Linn presents what she terms a “visceral historical archaeology”—a perspective rooted in historical archaeology and medical anthropology—to illuminate the experiences of these immigrants. She investigates their health-related ideas and practices and reveals their efforts to heal themselves using popular remedies from Ireland and several new American commodities. Laden with heartrending stories from real working-class Irish and their American doctors, this richly illustrated book provides new perspectives about urban experience in the context of the Irish diaspora and invites contemplation about how illness, injury, and healing have affected the lives and reception of newcomers to the US.
Advocacy and Archaeology: Urban Intersections, edited by Kelly M. Britt and Diane F. George, 2023
Advocacy and collaboration with stakeholders have been important components of the Seneca Villag... more Advocacy and collaboration with stakeholders have been important components of the Seneca Village project (now the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History or IESVH) since Diana Wall, Nan Rothschild, and Cynthia Copeland founded it in the 1990s. The project has involved people of diverse backgrounds and promoted the village’s historical significance as a stable, middle-class, 19th-century African American and European immigrant community, among the earliest landowners New York City “removed” through eminent domain. This work has begun to bring the village forward into public memory, but it is still under-recognized. Meanwhile, the digital revolution has proliferated misconceptions about it. This paper discusses the history of the project and the ongoing collaboration among the IESVH, several academic institutions, and a private, non-profit park conservancy to research and increase awareness of the village’s importance in our national heritage.
Archaeologists frequently discover 19th-century patent- and proprietary-medicine bottles at sites... more Archaeologists frequently discover 19th-century patent- and proprietary-medicine bottles at sites across the U.S. The unregulated medical mixtures once contained in these vessels were immensely popular. Interpreting how and why people used them is challenging, however, and complicated by assumptions that they were lesser alternatives to physicians’ prescriptions and consumers used them as directed in advertisements. This article questions these assumptions by considering patent medicines within the context of their time. It also examines consumers’ perspectives and how culture, local context, needs, and material qualities of medicines affect health-related decisions. Patent medicines found in association with Irish-immigrant residences at the Five Points in Manhattan form a case study with broader implications. This article proposes that studies of 19th-century patent medicines would benefit from beginning with the premises that they were reasonable medical options that consumers used in ways that resonated with their own cultural perspectives and addressed their specific health concerns.
Archaeology of Identity and Dissonance edited by Diane F. George and Bernice Kurchin, 2019
This chapter explores the issue of identity in Seneca Village, a nineteenth-century, middle-class... more This chapter explores the issue of identity in Seneca Village, a nineteenth-century, middle-class, Black community located in what is now Central Park in New York City. The city evicted the residents in 1857, and until recently this important village was forgotten. Using information from historical documents and material culture (including landscaping and both the form and decoration of dishes) excavated from the site in 2011, this study examines the intersection of class, race, and nationality. The evidence suggests that the identity of at least one family there was made of many strands: they may have identified themselves as members of the black middle class, as Americans, as African Americans, and perhaps even as Africans, depending on the situation and the audience. Skillful use of these strands may have been one way in which this and other village families attempted to ameliorate oppression and to make a place for themselves.
Archaeology of Identity and Dissonance, edited by Diane F. George and Bernice Kurchin, 2019
During the mid- to late-nineteenth century, millions of Irish people emigrated to the U.S. fleein... more During the mid- to late-nineteenth century, millions of Irish people emigrated to the U.S. fleeing hardship and searching for a better life. Much has been written about how they faced great anti-Irish prejudice and yet forged an Irish American identity in cities such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. A previously under-examined dimension of this struggle is how these predominately rural newcomers adjusted to urban life. This chapter begins to address this issue, focusing on how Irish immigrants in mid-nineteenth-century New York City manipulated their appearances. Using evidence from archaeological sites, immigrant letters, historical newspapers, and folklore archives, this study shows how some Irish immigrants utilized cosmetic hair preparations as transformative substances to style new urban Irish American identities and to manage interactions with employers, native-born peers, and other Irish community members.
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA), 2013
In reading J. J. Carver’s excellent suggestions for how to better enable archaeology and large ur... more In reading J. J. Carver’s excellent suggestions for how to better enable archaeology and large urban infrastructure projects to progress to mutual benefit, I found myself in enthusiastic agreement with his point that ‘professional working relationships are the most important challenge for archaeology in mega projects’ and that we must convince project directors, engineers, and site teams that archaeology ‘can enhance the value of the project they are building’ (4). This is especially crucial in cities like New York City (NYC), where government protection of cultural heritage is weaker than in London and where the city’s identity is tied more to its future than its past. In future-oriented cities, it is thus necessary to take Carver’s point even further and to engage people involved in all levels of urban planning and development, both at project sites and within the academic programs that train them, to help bring about a cultural shift in attitudes towards the value of archaeology.
Archaeologists at a few sites in the United States have uncovered numerous soda-water bottles in ... more Archaeologists at a few sites in the United States have uncovered numerous soda-water bottles in features associated with the dwellings of 19th-century Irish immigrants. This study focuses particularly on findings from the Five Points, New York City’s most notorious 19th-century working-class neighborhood, and offers explanations for what may potentially be a more widespread pattern of soda-water usage among Irish immigrants. Based on information gathered from historical and folkloric archives and attention to the materiality of soda water, it is argued that soda water resonated with Irish immigrants, evoking varied Irish traditional understandings of water, and offering new possibilities to address new Irish concerns in the U.S. By purchasing, selling, and consuming soda water, Irish immigrants managed issues including health, nostalgia, temperance, Irish nationalism, status, and identity. Soda water acted as a fluid substance providing relief for sickness and homesickness, and facilitated the creation of new Irish American identities.
This article presents an Irish magical cure for scrofula, reported by the New York Times in 1858,... more This article presents an Irish magical cure for scrofula, reported by the New York Times in 1858, as a means to discuss the significance of Irish magical healing in the U.S. and how archaeologists might be able to recognize its material traces. Because of how magic has been historically understood in the West, 19th-century Americans used examples of Irish magic to bolster anti-Irish stereotypes and behaviors. Magical healing, nevertheless, was an important and effective strategy for the Irish who suffered from a dramatic increase in illnesses and injuries in the U.S. It was an integral part of their worldview, and it influenced how they interpreted new healing commodities like patent medicines. This article encourages archaeologists to reconsider the importance of magical healing in the past and the present.
Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (PIA), 2013
Interview conducted by Hana Koriech and Meredith Linn, 27th July 2013 at Columbia University in N... more Interview conducted by Hana Koriech and Meredith Linn, 27th July 2013 at Columbia University in New York City.
This summer we had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with three of the most celebrated New York City (NYC) archaeologists, Drs. Anne-Marie Cantwell, Nan Rothschild, and Diana diZerega Wall. Each is well-known for their exemplary teaching careers, outstanding publications, and direction of some of the city’s most important excavations. The three are also long-time friends and collaborators. In a lively afternoon chat, they shared their more personal experiences in NYC archaeology over the past several decades, their reflections about how it has changed, and their ideas for the future.
Envisioning Seneca Village (envisioningsenecavillage.github.io/) is a digital project that imagin... more Envisioning Seneca Village (envisioningsenecavillage.github.io/) is a digital project that imagines what this significant nineteenth-century village might have looked like around the year 1855, shortly before its destruction for the building of Central Park. The project is anchored in existing and ongoing research of many historians, archaeologists, educators, and descendants about this community of which there are no surviving photos, drawings, or above-ground traces. We seek to amplify this scholarship, help visitors to learn more about the village, catalyze new research, and above all, honor the people of Seneca Village and the community they created.
This is a living project, so please visit again in the future to see updates and new features.
Project team: Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang
2005 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Society, Washington, D.C., 2005
From 1845 to 1855 Irish immigrants outnumbered all other ethnic groups in hospital and mental asy... more From 1845 to 1855 Irish immigrants outnumbered all other ethnic groups in hospital and mental asylum admissions in New York City. Participants in the Irish diaspora, the majority of these immigrants had been from rural areas in Ireland. Many had been stricken by famine and famine-related diseases at home, very possibly harsh trans-Atlantic voyages, and difficult lives in urban slum areas once they arrived in New York. It is no wonder that they suffered physically and mentally under these conditions. These facts are well known, but what is not known is how these immigrants attempted to actively deal with their medical afflictions and what their experiences of treatment were. Understanding healthcare strategies and experiences can provide great insight into both social and personal lives, as many recent works in medical anthropology have clearly demonstrated. This paper aims to better understand mid-19th-century Irish immigrant lived experiences and occasions of agency through a close examination of hospital records from New York Hospital and Bellevue Hospital, both of which were originally located close to the main areas of immigrant settlement. Written by physicians and surgeons, these records are full of sensory and statistical details. This paper will suggest that attention to details, such as how the patients expressed their complaints, how they reacted verbally and physically to various treatments, their particular illness, age, occupation, and marital status, may allow the researcher to exhume fragments of Irish immigrant personal narratives and physical experiences long buried in these dusty and neglected texts.
2006 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Sacramento, CA , 2006
This paper examines the healthcare strategies of mid 19th-century rural Irish immigrants in New Y... more This paper examines the healthcare strategies of mid 19th-century rural Irish immigrants in New York City as a lens for understanding the creation of Irish-American identities in urban America as something distinct from, yet intimately related to, their identities in their colonized homeland. Using archaeological evidence from Manhattan and first-person narratives from letters, this paper argues that mid 19th-century Irish immigrants actively approached healthcare, defeating British and middle-class American portrayals of them as incompetent and passive. Irish immigrants selectively incorporated new American strategies into their traditional medical toolkit, and infused American culture with values and practices from the "old sod."
2007 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Williamsburg, VA, 2007
This paper examines the strategies of Irish immigrants in mid 19th C New York City to remedy heal... more This paper examines the strategies of Irish immigrants in mid 19th C New York City to remedy health problems so rampant in the city and within the Irish immigrant community at the time. Archaeological evidence from the Five Points and medical case histories from New York Hospital reveal that the Irish in New York utilized both folk medicine from their old country and new resources from their new country. Their selective strategies suggest that healthcare was vital and contested site where these immigrants worked out their identities as both Irish and American and came to be Irish-Americans.
2008 Annual Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG), Columbia University, 2008
The ways in which families treat childhood illnesses at home are often elusive to the researcher,... more The ways in which families treat childhood illnesses at home are often elusive to the researcher, but they are extremely significant. Not only can home practices mean life or death for little ones, but also they tend to be conservative and successful at transmitting culturally specific ideas about illness, healing, and the body to the next generation. How to properly care for children, therefore, is frequently a point of conflict in cases of cultural interaction, such as those between immigrant groups and their host societies or colonialists and indigenous populations. This paper investigates the case of the first large group of immigrants in the post-Revolutionary U.S. in the U.S.’s largest city: the Irish in New York City. Irish folklore about popular medicinal practices is crucial for uncovering Irish agency in medical case records from NY hospitals and physicians and for decoding archaeological clues in the form of bottles and floral and faunal remains. The combination of these formal and informal sources of evidence is used to reconstruct and reconsider the home remedies and healthcare strategies that Irish immigrants used to transform sick American-born children into healthy Irish-Americans.
2019 Annual Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeological Group (TAG), Syracuse, NY, 2019
During the nineteenth century, the population and spatial extent of New York City expanded rapidl... more During the nineteenth century, the population and spatial extent of New York City expanded rapidly, both creating more jobs and enabling employers to place greater productivity demands on an increasing number of wage-based unskilled laborers and service workers. Technologies like the clock, which brought about more exacting measurement of time, and the railroad, which dramatically accelerated the pace of travel and eliminated some seasonal slow-downs, contributed to increasing expectations of how much a person could (and should) produce per day and transformed the way that people perceived time. This transformation was not a smooth process, however. Laborers, many of whom came from rural areas and who were accustomed to seasonal changes in the pace of work, resented and resisted employers’ attempts to control their time. Their efforts ranged from establishing more independent communities on the rural fringes of the city to creating intentional labor slow-downs on the grounds that employers’ encouragement of competition between workers was unethical and anti-social. This paper will consider how greater attention to time and temporality can help us to better understand the lives of workers in nineteenth-century New York City, particularly Irish immigrants and African Americans, who, in turn, provide inspiration for how and why we should consider a slower approach to our own research endeavors.
2024 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Oakland, CA, 2024
In 1825, two years before Emancipation in New York State and in a climate of intense anti-Black r... more In 1825, two years before Emancipation in New York State and in a climate of intense anti-Black racism, two Black men purchased land north of the urban core of New York City. Over the next three decades, other Black men and women and European (mostly Irish) immigrants also purchased land there. Together they created a community that included three churches, a school, planted fields, and dozens of homes. In 1857, the City of New York used the right of eminent domain and an argument about the “greater good” to take their land, raze their village, and build Central Park. The village did not re-form elsewhere and was neglected in city histories. This paper focuses on what our historical archaeological investigations have revealed about this forgotten community, particularly how in their everyday interactions with one another and the local environment, Seneca Villagers cultivated a thriving and relatively self-sufficient and sheltered community.
2023 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Lisbon, Portugal, 2023
Historians have long noted that the majority of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine (1845-1... more Historians have long noted that the majority of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Famine (1845-1852) came from rural areas in Ireland and, surprisingly, settled in American cities, quickly becoming an urbanized population. Explanations for this phenomenon have centered on social factors, which are certainly significant, but they have neglected the physical landscape and often assumed all areas of American cities were highly urbanized. Using the nation’s largest city—and what by 1860 was dubbed “the most Irish city in the Union”—as a case study, this paper takes a closer look at the particular locations and environments in New York City in which mid-19th-century Irish immigrants clustered. It combines evidence from documents, folklore, and archaeological excavations to consider the features that likely attracted Irish immigrants to certain locations and how they utilized local resources, including continuing rural practices of plant cultivation and animal husbandry.
2012 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Baltimore, MD, 2012
When it comes to healing, medical anthropologists have shown that the line between science and ma... more When it comes to healing, medical anthropologists have shown that the line between science and magic is blurry. Even surgeons, for example, perform pre-operative rituals aiming to increase their success, while ordinary individuals employ a variety of magical-medicinal home remedies hoping to avoid seeking professional care. These remedies are significant, especially in cases of immigration. Home remedies not only form the first line of defense against illness and injury (to which immigrants are particularly prone due to difficult working and living conditions), but also convey culturally-specific worldviews that can exacerbate conflict between immigrants and host populations. This paper investigates the magical-medicinal practices of Irish immigrants in 19th-century New York City using a combination of archaeological, historical, and folkloric records. Greater understanding of these practices can expand archaeologists’ interpretations of material culture, revealing extraordinary meanings and uses of seemingly ordinary artifacts.
2014 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Quebec, Canada, 2014
Much has been written in the past few decades about how mid-19th-century Irish immigrants, the fi... more Much has been written in the past few decades about how mid-19th-century Irish immigrants, the first large wave of immigrants Americans perceived to be foreign, forged hybridized Irish American identities. What had not been fully addressed thus far is how these predominately rural newcomers adjusted to urban life in New York City, arguably the central place of Irish in America and a distinctively cosmopolitan place. This paper begins to address this issue, using material remains from the Five Points site, in particular, to better understand how Irish immigrants utilized commodities like cosmetics, patent medicines, and ceramics to counter stereotypes that they were unsophisticated brutes and to fashion new urban (and urbane) identities.
2020 Annual Meeting of the Society of Historical Archaeology, Boston, MA, 2020
Advocacy and collaboration with stakeholders have been important components of the Seneca Village... more Advocacy and collaboration with stakeholders have been important components of the Seneca Village project (now the Institute for the Exploration of Seneca Village History or IESVH) since Diana Wall, Nan Rothschild, and Cynthia Copeland founded it in the 1990s. The project has involved people of diverse backgrounds and promoted the village’s historical significance as a stable, middle-class, 19th-century African American and European immigrant community, among the earliest landowners New York City “removed” through eminent domain. This work has begun to bring the village forward into public memory, but it is still underrecognized. Meanwhile, the digital revolution has proliferated misconceptions about it. This paper discusses a new collaboration among the IESVH, several academic institutions, and a private, non-profit park conservancy to create an accessible Seneca Village digital platform to bring together ongoing research and increase awareness of the village’s importance in our national heritage.
2018 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, 2018
In the late 1820s and in the shadow of emancipation in New York State, several African Americans ... more In the late 1820s and in the shadow of emancipation in New York State, several African Americans purchased land in what is now Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Pushed by racial oppression and unsanitary conditions downtown and pulled by the prospects of a healthier, freer life and property ownership, they were joined by other members of the African diaspora and built an important Black middle-class community, likely active in the abolitionist movement. The city removed the villagers from their land in 1857 by right of eminent domain to construct Central Park. This paper presents the results of recent excavations revealing some of the ways residents created this unique community, through traditional practices of landscape manipulation and social activities. We will also discuss residents’ efforts to resist removal, the city’s dispersal of the villagers, and our difficulty locating former residents after they were removed from this special place.
2017 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, Canada, 2017
During the height of the Great Hunger in Ireland in the late 1840s, epidemic typhus fever infecte... more During the height of the Great Hunger in Ireland in the late 1840s, epidemic typhus fever infected thousands aboard emigrant ships destined for New York City. Suddenly, a disease that had long been known as "jail-fever" or "ship-fever" became the "Irish fever." It was no longer associated with a place, but with a people. This paper will explain why (for many Americans) the intersection between typhus fever and the bodies of rural Irish laborers created a new disease, one they used to naturalize and expand previous ideas of Irish racial difference. It will use the archaeological record to interpret how immigrants attempted to heal themselves and to destabilize stereotypical caricatures of "Pat" and "Bridget." In doing so, this study will employ intersectionality theory beyond its original emphasis on the intersection between gender and other identities (although gender has important roles in this study too). It aims to draw greater attention to the importance of both the social construction of medical knowledge and particular illness status in the lives of immigrants and in the development of racial and ethnic categories.
2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Leicester, England, 2013
Archaeologists have long recognized that urban environments are frequently hazardous to the healt... more Archaeologists have long recognized that urban environments are frequently hazardous to the health of residents. From the very first cities through the present, many urban populations have experienced higher rates of epidemic disease, endemic disease, and certain kinds of injuries than rural populations. Health is thus both a primary concern for public officials in cities and a daily struggle for ordinary urban-dwellers. This paper discusses the health-related challenges faced by rural Irish newcomers to the rapidly expanding city of New York in the mid to late nineteenth century. It focuses particularly on injuries resulting from the strenuous and dangerous jobs building and maintaining the city that Irish immigrants had little choice but to take. A combination of archaeological remains, hospital case records, and folklore records reveal how individuals treated these injuries, often creatively combining rural Irish traditions with new materials from the metropolis.
2016 Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington D.C., 2016
Patent medicines were immensely popular in the 19th century. They promised astounding cures, were... more Patent medicines were immensely popular in the 19th century. They promised astounding cures, were unregulated and relatively inexpensive, and permitted individuals to self-medicate without an interfering physician. Archaeologists have often begun their interpretations of these curious commodities with the premises that they were lesser quality alternatives to physicians’ prescriptions and thus more appealing to poorer alienated groups (who used them passively as advertised) than to the native-born middle class. Inspired by Diana diZerega Wall’s important body of comparative work using material culture to examine gender, class, and ethnicity in 19th-century New York City, this paper uses patent medicines similarly and focuses most on comparisons between working-class Irish immigrants and middle-class native-born Americans. This paper shows that patent medicine consumption was often a reasonable option that cross-cut class and ethnicity, and that different groups preferred different types or brands of patent medicines that reveal their divergent agency, circumstances, and worldviews.
As a result of the Great Famine and social and economic conditions in Ireland, more than two mill... more As a result of the Great Famine and social and economic conditions in Ireland, more than two million Irish immigrants arrived in New York City (NYC) between 1845 and 1870. Initially marginalized by Americans, Irish immigrants lived in the poorest housing, worked the most dangerous and strenuous jobs, and disproportionately suffered from illness and injury. This story is well-known, and one in which Irish immigrants have been framed as passive victims, ignorant regarding healthcare. This study in historical archaeology uses three leading causes of Irish immigrant morbidity, "Irish fever" (epidemic typhus fever), work-related injuries, and tuberculosis, as lenses to investigate Irish immigrants' experiences and relationships with native-born Americans in NYC from 1845 to 1870. This study reveals that American popular and medical understandings of bodily appearances, health, and disease shaped American perceptions of the Irish and changed over time, while Irish immigrants actively and creatively treated their ailments and made lasting contributions to American healthcare. Reading the historical record through these lenses shows Americans' identification of the Irish with typhus fever in the 1840s and 1850s fostered notions of Irish difference and lesser humanity, while romanticized understandings of tuberculosis in the 1860s and 1870s re-humanized the Irish. The bodies of Irish immigrants broken by labor, meanwhile, lay at the center of debates about personhood and the meaning of suffering surrounding the application of anaesthesia to surgery. Analyzing archaeological evidence from the Five Points (NYC) and Paterson, NJ and case records from NYC hospitals through these lenses and through Irish traditional medical perspectives, moreover, reveals invaluable evidence of Irish medical strategies, both traditional and innovative. Folklore records are vital for establishing Irish traditional medical perspectives, practices, and pharmacopeia, which figure prominently in this study. In treating their ailments at home and negotiating their care in hospitals, Irish immigrants contributed to patent medicine, soda water, cosmetics, and clothing industries and to developing new surgical procedures, improved nursing care, and private hospitals in America. This visceral historical archaeology of 19th -century Irish immigrants highlights their previously unappreciated health-related experiences, struggles, and contributions and provides an example for future studies of other immigrant groups
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In this profound study, Meredith B. Linn explores three kinds of afflictions—typhus fever, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries—that disproportionately affected Irish immigrants, tracing how existing medical ideas and technologies intersected with American prejudices to further conspire against this once culturally distinct group. Linn makes a compelling case for how Americans’ interpretations of the visible bodily changes wrought by typhus fever and injuries contributed to essentializing and dehumanizing biases against these new immigrants, while tuberculosis—with its symptoms of fatigue, pallor, and emaciation—enabled Americans to see individuals beyond stereotypes and to recognize the equal humanity of the Irish.
Drawing upon extensive archaeological records, folkloric sources, and historical documents, Linn presents what she terms a “visceral historical archaeology”—a perspective rooted in historical archaeology and medical anthropology—to illuminate the experiences of these immigrants. She investigates their health-related ideas and practices and reveals their efforts to heal themselves using popular remedies from Ireland and several new American commodities. Laden with heartrending stories from real working-class Irish and their American doctors, this richly illustrated book provides new perspectives about urban experience in the context of the Irish diaspora and invites contemplation about how illness, injury, and healing have affected the lives and reception of newcomers to the US.
This summer we had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with three of the most celebrated New York City (NYC) archaeologists, Drs. Anne-Marie Cantwell, Nan Rothschild, and Diana diZerega Wall. Each is well-known for their exemplary teaching careers, outstanding publications, and direction of some of the city’s most important excavations. The three are also long-time friends and collaborators. In a lively afternoon chat, they shared their more personal experiences in NYC archaeology over the past several decades, their reflections about how it has changed, and their ideas for the future.
This is a living project, so please visit again in the future to see updates and new features.
Project team: Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang
In this profound study, Meredith B. Linn explores three kinds of afflictions—typhus fever, tuberculosis, and work-related injuries—that disproportionately affected Irish immigrants, tracing how existing medical ideas and technologies intersected with American prejudices to further conspire against this once culturally distinct group. Linn makes a compelling case for how Americans’ interpretations of the visible bodily changes wrought by typhus fever and injuries contributed to essentializing and dehumanizing biases against these new immigrants, while tuberculosis—with its symptoms of fatigue, pallor, and emaciation—enabled Americans to see individuals beyond stereotypes and to recognize the equal humanity of the Irish.
Drawing upon extensive archaeological records, folkloric sources, and historical documents, Linn presents what she terms a “visceral historical archaeology”—a perspective rooted in historical archaeology and medical anthropology—to illuminate the experiences of these immigrants. She investigates their health-related ideas and practices and reveals their efforts to heal themselves using popular remedies from Ireland and several new American commodities. Laden with heartrending stories from real working-class Irish and their American doctors, this richly illustrated book provides new perspectives about urban experience in the context of the Irish diaspora and invites contemplation about how illness, injury, and healing have affected the lives and reception of newcomers to the US.
This summer we had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with three of the most celebrated New York City (NYC) archaeologists, Drs. Anne-Marie Cantwell, Nan Rothschild, and Diana diZerega Wall. Each is well-known for their exemplary teaching careers, outstanding publications, and direction of some of the city’s most important excavations. The three are also long-time friends and collaborators. In a lively afternoon chat, they shared their more personal experiences in NYC archaeology over the past several decades, their reflections about how it has changed, and their ideas for the future.
This is a living project, so please visit again in the future to see updates and new features.
Project team: Gergely Baics, Meredith Linn, Leah Meisterlin, and Myles Zhang