Swede Hollow Archaeology Project: An Examination of the History, Lifeways, and Sanitation of Swede Hollow in Saint Paul, Minnesota

Abstract

Swede Hollow was once an urban "slum-like" neighborhood located in Eastside St. Paul, Minnesota. Many people still living remember as it was then, a bustling immigrant community full of people working to earn enough to move their family "up on the street." A very rich history surrounds this place. Stories, memories, and personal accounts have a nostalgic feeling of happy lives lived by poor immigrant families, while some historical accounts describe a community living in extreme poverty and harsh living conditions.These gaps in the story between history and memory are what tools like archaeology can attempt to fill. The Swede Hollow Archaeology Project brought the process of archaeology and local history to the public and is beginning to answer questions related to the past lifeways of those that once lived there, identifying issues related to poor sanitation, and rationalizing the historical record with the memory of this place. Techniques such as historical research, map analysis, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), and public archaeology have all been used to start filling in these gaps between history and memory.