Under the structure of the Health Humanities Lab, which is supported by the Humanities Research Center and the Honors College, student fellows worked to implement specific recommendations of the Family Representative Council for research and memorialization. These posters were created to share that work with the public, which included oral history projects, podcasting, a teach-in, policy recommendations for the ethical treatment of human remains, and a traveling exhibit.
More background documents on the Project from the VCU Office of the President can be found at https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/arch001/
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Bone Pathology and Non-Specific Indicators of Stress in Skeletal Remains from the East Marshall Street Well Project
Felix C. Arsenault, Finnegan E. Smith, and Tal Simmons
This project was conducted to observe the health environment surrounding the individuals that were found in the East Marshall Street Well, both juvenile and adult, utilizing visual and radiographic examination.
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East Marshall Street Well Project: Reparative Work and the Policy for Human Remains
Rome Kamarouthu
This poster introduces the public to the history of medical exploitation tied to the East Marshall Street Well in the 19 th century, as well as the reparative efforts of the East Marshall Street Well Project, a partnership between VCU and a community group known as the Family Representative Council. It stresses that the Family Representative Council has called upon VCU to bury the remains found in the well, as well as to support research and memorialization efforts. The poster highlights the work of student fellows in fulfilling those recommendations, specifically in conducting and processing oral history interviews, and in developing a policy for the ethical treatment of historical human remains that may be found on VCU in the future.
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East Marshall Street Well Project Science Curriculum
Victoria Solano, Elizabeth Edmondson, and Tal Simmons
Over the last year, the East Marshall Street Well Project science curriculum has been presented to students in Richmond and surrounding counties five times. Dr. Simmons and students in the Department of Forensic Sciences taught the lessons. Victoria Solana, Dr. Edmondson, and Dr. Simmons developed the lessons. They were refined by the Department of Forensic Science students and Ms. Solano after being taught in each of the classrooms. The feedback that we have received from the students has been reflective of the need for lessons that showcase local and historical issues that have arisen in our own backyard. Students have been receptive to the project and its message.
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Reverberations of Medical Racism: Exploring the Legacy of VCU School of Medicine through the EMSW Project
Arya Hanjagi, Cynthia Lin, and Olivia Washington
Our work is centered on approaching research related to the East Marshall Street Well Project from a community-engaged perspective that integrates local actors throughout all levels of examination as a form of rectifying the harm that this historic exclusion has created. Given the nature of oral history as preservation of knowledge, we cannot draw conclusions about the significance of research unless we include the public. Our works seek to share our research through equitable and easily accessible means. Using oral histories as our main methodology, we can establish that recognizing this harm, and healing from it, requires fostering conversation among stakeholders, including but not solely limited to VCU students, the Richmond community—in particular the Black community, and the VCU medical system.
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The Reassociation of Highly Degraded Human Remains Found in the East Marshall Street Well Using Insertion/Null and Short Tandem Repeat Genotyping
Sierra L. Laveroni, Andrea Malchow, Daniela Frausto, Michelle M. Woo, Baneshwar Singh, Filipa Simao, and Tal Simmons
The East Marshall Street Well ( was uncovered during the construction of the Kontos building on the Medical College of Virginia campus in Richmond, Virginia Human remains, artifacts, and other historical items dating to the mid 19 th century were discovered inside the well.
Objective: To reassociate highly degraded human skeletal groups into discrete individuals using Insertion Null (INNUL) and Short Tandem Repeat (STR) genotyping.
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Unraveling the History of East Marshall Street Well through Ancestry and Phenotypic Inferences
Filipa Simão, Baneshwar Singh, and Tal Simmons
Family Representative Council Questions to address • What were the most likely African ethnic and cultural backgrounds of individual EMSW Ancestors? • How can study of the EMSW site contribute to an even broader understanding of enslaved and free African American life in 19th -century Richmond?
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Using the Microbiome to Assess the Health Status of Individuals Recovered from the East Marshall Street Well
Arian Karim, Tal Simmons, Jenise Swall, and Baneshwar Singh
The goal of this research project is to determine the bacterial structure of the dental calculus recovered from the East Marshall Street Well (EMSW) and to determine the disease state of the individuals recovered from the EMSW.