![]() ![]() He teaches environmental journalism and serves as director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism. During his 20-year newspaper career, he covered public affairs, environmental issues and legal affairs for newspapers in New York and Michigan, winning a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of a legislative corruption scandal. Doctors’ visits were inconvenient and expensive, so they depended on over-the-counter products as cheaper alternatives to reduce or relieve symptoms and “maintain the perception of well-being.”Įric Freedman is professor of journalism and former associate dean of International Studies and Programs. Given keepers’ low salaries and heavy responsibilities, “it appears that being unwell was a luxury in itself,” Surface-Evans wrote. Other finds included bottles for castor oil and milk of magnesia. For example, there were fragments of bottles of medications for stomach and digestive problems and nose drops excavated at 40 Mile Point. The three sites provide insights into how keepers and their families lived, including their use of medicines. “We can learn so much more by studying the artifacts they live behind.” Official documents like keepers’ daily logs provide only basic information about such mundane matters as weather, passing ships and maintenance, she said. The artifacts left behind can help correct that “misinterpreted perspective,” she said. That included elderly parents and unwed sisters. The reality is lighthouse keepers typically were married and had family or extended family living with them there,” she said. The mythology is that lighthouse keeping was a “lonely pursuit and a male realm. She said the most surprising finds at the sites were domestic objects relating to families and family life. She wrote, “How did their health affect their daily lives and mental well-being? How did social trends in medicine influence their own perceptions of well-being?” Surface-Evans’ own chronic illness motivated her to use archaeological evidence such as the remains of medicinal objects, food and personal items, as well as documents, to discover how people living and working in lighthouses managed their health. The work “required round-the-clock attention and a military-like routine,” as well as an assumption the keepers were physically fit, according to Surface-Evans.Įach Great Lakes lighthouse “represents a broad swatch of maritime and lighthouse history from the 1820s to the 1940s,” when the last of them were automated, Surface-Evans said in an interview. Their arduous duties included climbing the many steps to tend the light, assisting ships in trouble, carrying heavy loads and shoveling coal. Physical evidence unearthed at the site in Mackinaw City included bones from butchered pigs, spent ammunition, dolls and doll-sized dishware, canning jar fragments, marbles and “multiple pepper sauce bottles, which could have been used to store ketchup, vinegar or relish.”ĭavenport, who staffed the lighthouse 3 miles from the nearest town for 27 years, “was very focused on maintaining the well-being of his children through access to both food and play,” Surface-Evans wrote.ĭavenport’s experience reflects how tough life was for lighthouse keepers in remote locations around the Great Lakes. ![]() ![]() Spartan Newsroom - News and information from student journalists at the Michigan State University School of JournalismĮmmet CountyLighthouse keeper James Davenport and his eight children at McGulpin Point Lighthouse after his wife’s death.ĭavenport used his “paltry annual salary” to buy toys for the five girls and three boys, gardened, maintained an orchard, raised pigs and hunted to feed the family. About the Michigan State University School of Journalism.MSU School of Journalism Code of Ethics.MSU journalism COVID-related reporting guidelines.Michigan Chile Investigative Journalism Program.
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