Brief Bio:

 I am a junior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in History Education with a minor in Africana Studies. After school i plan on attending graduate school to get my masters. I have already  applied to Georgetown University. I am thinking about getting a high school job while in grad school to pay for my bills, but i am undecided. My ultimate goal is to be a college professor any college will do im not picky. But i enjoy working with children so working at a hight school would be fine to.

Working Notes:

Coroner Files 1960's:

During my time reviewing the coroner case files of the 1960’s there are a number of things that proved to be a little different from what we see in today’s society.

 One of the things that stood out was the fact that a lot of elderly people who died during this time period died without ever going to see a doctor.  Most had no medical history the same rang true for some younger people.  I believe this is due to the fact that doctor fees where very expensive and so where the medications one needed when sick. And since Medicare would not become a reality until the mid- 1970’s it was hard for some elderly to afford all of there bills.

Suicide was another occurrence that I found was a little high especially with young men in their early to mid twenties. In a few files I noticed that these young men who dint seem to have anything wrong with them were committing suicide, but even more stranger was the fact that an overwhelming amount of them used the same method.  By running a tube, from the tailpipe of their vehicles, into the windows, and asphyxiating themselves. One of the gentlemen wrote a suicide note that was one of the most touching and articulate writings I have ever read. He seemed like he had so much ahead of him but he couldn’t handle life. While it did not say that these men were in Vietnam it is my strong belief that these men were veterans who could not deal with civilian life.  And the manor in which they chose to end there lives could have had something to do with keeping there bodies in tact for burial because of family and such.

Coroner Files 1900's:

The first case files of the 1900’s I worked on were from July of 1901. The temperature must have been overwhelming because many of the people in the case files died of heat prostration and exhaustion. There was no age limit the people ranged from 12 to 80. While it is kind of strange today for a young child to die of exhaustion back then most children had very demanding jobs. There was no air conditioning so people kept cool the best way that they could. While indoor plumbing was available most working class people could not afford it in there homes, so they used one of the three rivers surrounding Pittsburgh to bath, wash clothes and for just recreation.  The numbers of drowning deaths were astounding; many of the files that I uncovered were toddlers to about the age fourteen, almost every person drowned while taking a bath which is weird because if they had been bathing in the river their whole lives you would think they could swim.

            Suicide was pretty much being done the same as today for instance self inflicted gun shot wounds hanging or stabbing ones self but many of the case files I came across people died by ingesting accidentally or purposely a substance known as Carbolic Acid. After a little research I found out that carbolic acid was a sweet smelling clear liquid added to products like antiseptics, disinfectants, germicide, dyes, perfumes, textiles, and lubricating oils. And because carbolic acid was found in so many commonly used household products it sometimes was easily mistaken for something else and ingested. Some of the signs that you have taken Carbolic acid are low or now urine out put, blue or green urine, wheezing blue lips and your skin would turn yellow.

            As I moved into 1902-03 another kind of poison began to appear. Paris Green aka  Schweinfurt Green  is a  an extremely poisonous, bright green powder that was formerly used extensively as a pigment in wall paper, and that is sometimes used as an insecticide or to kill plant fungi. Chemically it is a copper acetoarsenite that may be prepared from arsenic trioxide and copper acetate.

            We were asked to pay close attention to the case files that involved women and self-abortions.  It took awhile for me to come across any such cases but once I did it really disturbed me .The lengths that some on the women went to give themselves and abortion is almost scary. One women used knitting needles to pry the fetes loose  she tried it two times before she was successful, but at the same time she ended up diving herself a really bad infection and she also died. Another women drank Carbolic Acid while it made the mother very sick it was not enough to kill her but it was certainly enough to kill her baby. Many babies died during this time but doctors had no idea about sids and such childhood diseases. So many of the files were just labeled as died of spasms, or heart disease .

            The workplace in the early 1900’s was a very dangerous place; safety regulations were almost non-existent. And there would not be unions allowed in the large steel industries of Pittsburgh until the early to mid-1930.  I would saw that at least over fifty percent of my files were from people who died in some sort of industrial accident. Some of the most common ones were death due to falling slate, falling ore, falling rock. Men were trapped in coalmines when they unexpectedly collapsed.  It kind of made me wonder what kind of people would work in very dangerous conditions for probably very low wages. I realized that this is the time of a migration of polish and other immigrants, so it was easy to get immigrants and African Americans to work for less. Especially since the country was still in the late stages of reconstruction after the civil war.