May 9, 2024
Meredeth A. B. Ellis
Talk summary: In this talk, I will share the results of the bioarchaeological investigation into the early 19th century Spring Street Presbyterian Church in Lower Manhattan. In particular this talk will focus on the children (<15 years of age) in the commingled skeletal collection (MNI = 70) that was accidentally unearthed in 2006. This talk will focus on trends in diseases, including rickets, scurvy, and endocranial lesions, as well as social ideology around children and health in 19th century New York City. This will be done by focusing on understanding children within socially relevant age categories. The combination of skeletal data and historic records allows for a specific commentary on differing social relationships, and therefore embodied skeletal markers, experienced by children of different ages. This data can help us understand larger social dynamics in the rapidly urbanizing space of the 8th Ward of Manhattan.
Bio: Meredith A.B. Ellis is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Florida Atlantic University, and the Interim Director of the College of Arts and Letters Doctoral Program in Comparative Studies. She holds MA degrees in English (University of Rochester) and Anthropology (Syracuse University) and a PhD in Anthropology from Syracuse University. Her research focus is on bioarchaeology of the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States, with a particular focus on childhood, race, and social theory. She is the author of the monograph: The Children of Spring Street: The Bioarchaeology of Childhood in a 19th Century Abolitionist Congregation and the coeditor of Nineteenth Century Childhoods in Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives, with Jane Eva Baxter. Her current work explores the theoretical underpinnings of bioarchaeological identity making through the study of two skeletons from the 1928 Hurricane in Belle Glade, Florida.