Archaeology

Archaeology class hopes dig sheds light on Madame Walker's life

Beginning Monday, IUPUI students literally will be digging into the past of Madam C.J. Walker. An official archaeological dig on the site where her home and small factory stood a century ago is expected to last into June, and organizers hope to find artifacts that shed a little light on the life and times of one of the nation's greatest entrepreneurs.

Walker, who died in 1919, launched a company of beauty products designed for black women. She lived in Indianapolis about five years, leaving for New York City in 1916. Her home was in the 600 block of North West Street, which now is called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, just north of the Madame Walker Theatre Center, 617 Indiana Ave.

Paul Mullins, associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and director of the project as an upper-level archaeology class, said the dig will include three lots: where Walker's home and a factory stood, a second home that had a factory in the back, and a third home that was a duplex and didn't have a direct connection to Walker.

Her home was demolished in 1966, and the other structures probably were razed about the same time, he said. The area to be excavated is about 60 feet by several hundred feet; about a dozen students probably will dig down several feet. Most of the focus probably will be in the backyards, including where outhouses once stood and where residents would have discarded rubbish in the years before trash collection became standard practice.

Garbage wasn't routinely picked up in the United States until after World War II, so backyards throughout American cities have been archaeological sites for home gardeners, Mullins said. Someone of Walker's financial wherewithal -- the daughter of former slaves had a personal and business net worth of more than $2 million when she died -- might have paid to have some refuse hauled away. But it also was common in those days to bury some trash or dispose of it in outhouses or underground cisterns, Mullins said.

Many of Walker's cosmetics products were sold in tins, and little is likely to be left of them, he said. Some glass bottles might be found, minus any labels, which would have disintegrated. Lewis Jones, 47, is working on a doctorate on Walker and plans to incorporate the yield of the summer dig into his dissertation. He also is conducting interviews and researching documents to develop a picture of what Walker meant, and continues to mean, to the community.

He said there's not a great mystery he expects to unravel, but he hopes to find more information to ensure Walker receives the attention and respect she is due. Anything found belongs to the Theatre Center and could be incorporated in a small museum in the building.

After the site is excavated and the class complete, the hole will be filled in with dirt and covered with gravel so it can again be used for parking. The Walker Theatre Center hopes to expand into the area, renovate the existing theater building and develop some retail establishments on the perimeter, but plans still are being developed, and there is no construction schedule.