Structural Violence in New Orleans: Skeletal Evidence from Charity Hospital’s Cemeteries, 1847–1929

Halling, Christine; Seidemann, Ryan M.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26836-1_8

Cited by 9 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…It is reasonably simple to discern structural violence when it is visited on the living (Farmer 2004). Even the historical record is full of evidence of such violence against the living, as Halling and Seidemann (2017) recounted from the histories of medical experimentation in New Orleans. In this regard, these authors document the fear in the nineteenth-century African-American and poor/immigrant communities that medical professionals were intentionally killing patients in order to use their bodies for experimentation.…”

Section: Structural Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape Structural Violence: A View from New Orleans’s Cemeteries

Seidemann

Halling²

2019

Am. Antiq.

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“Structural violence” is a term used to describe inflicted systematic violence on a disenfranchised group by an established order, usually framed as a government or the social majority. The disenfranchised groups are marginalized and not provided with the same access to resources such as healthcare or food, the effects of which can be observed directly in their death. Bioarchaeologists often can detect the visible effects of this violence on skeletal remains, which provide a visual representation to and reinforcement of social prejudices inflicted in life and death. Discussed here is how the same concept of structural violence can be inflicted on the landscape through damage to or obliteration of cemeteries. We propose a definition of “landscape structural violence” exhibited through cemetery erasure as a reinforcement of preexisting social prejudices in death where the governments or the social majority, intentionally or passively, destroy, remove, or obscure a cemetery without consultation with the descendant community. This definition is applied to several examples of New Orleans cemeteries to determine the functionality of the definition and what activity is and what is not structural violence inflicted on the landscape.

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Section: Structural Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape Structural Violence: A View from New Orleans’s Cemeteries

Seidemann

Halling²

2019

Am. Antiq.

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“…This analysis combines data from two skeletal collections from Charity Hospital, the Louisiana State University (LSU) collection ( n = 25) and the University of New Orleans (UNO) collection ( n = 74) with a third sample from Charity Hospital, the Smithsonian collection, which represents a larger skeletal dataset ( n = 271) (Owsley, 1995). All three collections show signs of postmortem examination; this mistreatment in death is mirrored by the structural violence they faced in life (Halling & Seidemann, 2017). Here, we discuss the demographic profiles of these collections and investigate the manifestations of systemic biological stress and other skeletal indicators of poor health to illuminate the physical toll that inequality and marginalisation took on these individuals (Angel et al, 1987; Gowland, 2018; Quinn & Beck, 2016; Voss, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the 18th and 19th centuries, New Orleans was home to Euro‐Americans, European, Asian, Caribbean immigrants, enslaved Africans, and free people of colour (Olivarius, 2019). Renovations in the 1840s made Charity one of the largest medical facilities in the nation, and among the largest indigent hospitals worldwide (Fossier, 1923; Halling & Seidemann, 2017; Salvaggio, 1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lower classes of New Orleans were constantly battling disease, poor sanitation, and dangerous and taxing occupations (Olivarius, 2019; Trask, 2005). Increased yellow fever mortality rates were partially responsible for the establishment of a second cemetery (Charity #2) at Charity Hospital during this time (Halling & Seidemann, 2017, 2020). Yellow fever was a serious threat to New Orleanians until after 1905 when mitigation measures and medical advancements rendered yellow fever and the mosquitos that carry it less harmful (Trask, 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Stress, health and demography at Charity Hospital Cemetery #2 (AD1847–1929)

Garcia-Putnam

Halling

Seidemann

2021

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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The physiological toll of poverty—from inadequate nutrition, higher disease loads, dangerous and taxing occupations, to limited health care—constitutes a form of structural violence. This violence is often embodied on skeletal tissues as signs of systemic biological stress. Here, we explore the skeletal manifestations of systemic biological stress on the bodies of those interred at Charity Hospital, an indigent hospital, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Given Charity's mission to serve the poorest residents of New Orleans, we expected to see widespread evidence of systemic biological stress in the skeletal remains of deceased patients from the hospital. Two skeletal collections from Charity Hospital Cemetery #2 were assessed for paleodemography and paleopathology, specifically this latter analysis focuses on the presence and severity of periosteal reactive new bone growth, linear enamel hypoplasia and porotic hyperostosis/cribra orbitalia, all skeletal signs of systemic stress throughout one's lifetime. We find that the remains show some signs of systemic stress. While this contradicts the trend shown in the hospital's records, it should be noted that indicators of systemic stress cannot map perfectly onto the health of a past population. It is possible that the individuals who comprised these two samples died of diseases and maladies that did not leave any skeletal indicators; an expectation that is reinforced by the fact that this cemetery was conceived as a response to multiple yellow fever epidemics in the 1840's, a disease that does not leave any skeletal signs.

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“…It is also known that cadavers were sold to private teachers, students and young doctors at the hospital by so‐called corpse carriers, a business later taken on by the hospital itself (Rasmussen, ). Having to rely on resurrectionists and grave robbing was a problem also faced elsewhere in Europe (Boston & Webb, ; Dittmar & Mitchell, ; Fowler & Powers, ; Mitchell, ) and North America (Halling & Seideman, ; Hodge et al, ; Owsley et al, ). A similar development towards dissections of the unclaimed was seen throughout Europe, for example, the Anatomy Act in 1832, England (Boston & Webb, ; Fowler & Powers, ; Humphries, ; Mitchell, ), and a request from the Guild of Surgeons and Barbers at Edinburgh in 1694 (Kaufman, ), who also held public dissections in 1702.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Skeletal Material from the Cemetery of the 19th Century Copenhagen Hospital for the Poor: Autopsies, Surgical Training and Anatomical Specimens

Flies

Winther²,

Lynnerup

2017

Intl J of Osteoarchaeology

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The skeletal material of 299 individual skeletons was recovered from 78 graves in central Copenhagen in 2006. The graves were part of a temporary cemetery serving the Copenhagen Hospital for the Poor in the period 1842-1858. It is known that the hospital supplied cadavers for teaching and dissection. Fifty-two skeletons and bones were found to have cut marks and saw marks, indicative of post mortem surgical interventions: dissection, autopsy, anatomical specimens and surgical practice. The material was closely examined for healing at the sawn edges and signs of diseases. It was attempted to differentiate the surgical procedures from one another and give an overview of the material and historical context. We were mostly unable to attach a specific post mortem surgical procedure to the skeletal elements; however, we present some cases that most likely represent a specific surgical intervention. An excavation of similarly processed bone material from London Hospital from the same time period was used as the main reference material. The skeletal material described here offers a view upon the medical development, teaching and training amongst surgeons and anatomists in mid-19th century.

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Structural Violence in New Orleans: Skeletal Evidence from Charity Hospital’s Cemeteries, 1847–1929

Cited by 9 publications

References 12 publications

Landscape Structural Violence: A View from New Orleans’s Cemeteries

Landscape Structural Violence: A View from New Orleans’s Cemeteries

Stress, health and demography at Charity Hospital Cemetery #2 (AD1847–1929)

Skeletal Material from the Cemetery of the 19th Century Copenhagen Hospital for the Poor: Autopsies, Surgical Training and Anatomical Specimens

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