Healthcare access and agency in material culture: a specialized analysis of pharmaceutical artifacts from Louisville’s West End.

The American Victorian Period of the 1870s to 1920s was a time of significant transitions in medicine. In Louisville, Kentucky, this period saw an influx of Black healthcare professionals and the founding of Louisville National Medical College, the state’s first medical school open to people of color. A number of these professionals lived and/or practiced in the Beecher Terrace study area, which was excavated between 2017 and 2020. Patent medicine brands and archival records were examined qualitatively in order to understand neighborhood and case study household health concerns and consumer choice. Statistical analyses of the medicine bottles recovered during the archaeological investigation and of city mortality rates were employed in order to understand diachronic changes in healthcare access and outcomes for neighborhood residents. The findings suggest that, while marginalization negatively impacted Black Louisvillians, health outcomes improved significantly after the establishment of Black professionals and institutions.