Evansville students excavate college's old Tin City site

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - Tin City living conditions may not have been ideal for World War II veterans, but University of Evansville junior Emily Corrigan said it was a great way to support the troops after the war.

Corrigan, 20, is an archaeology major enrolled in Alan Kaiser's Field Methods in Archaeology. The 12-student class is excavating an area of the old Tin City site in an effort to learn more about the women and children residents that lived there between 1947 and 1961.

Veterans taking advantage of the GI Bill after World War II drastically increased enrollment at the schools, then known as Evansville College. To help with the student housing shortage, Evansville College officials used federal money to build 13 residential units on campus specifically for World War II, and later Korean War, veterans. The official name of the housing was College Court, but students referred to it as Tin City because the buildings had aluminum siding.

University of Evansville sophomore Anna Ahrens said the housing addition gave the veterans and their families a place to live.

"Little did they know that they would be helping future archaeology students," Corrigan said.

Kaiser, UE archaeology professor, started the spring semester class with his wife in 2003 to provide a hands-on archaeology course. Christine Lovasz-Kaiser, UE adjunct lecturer, said initially the project was meant to find out what life was like then and if anything was left behind.

But Lovasz-Kaiser said the course continues to evolve, and includes historical elements, research at Willard Library, a soils unit, drawing maps, surveying land and creating a website.

Lovasz-Kaiser said the Tin City housing wasn't meant to be permanent. And in 1961, college officials demolished the buildings to make room for Moore Hall, Krannert Hall, Wheeler Auditorium and Neu Chapel.

Each semester, the class excavates a different area. During one of the first years, Lovasz-Kaiser said they received calls people who lived in Tin City as children. So history students were recruited to conduct interviews.

"We realized we knew a lot about the men, but not the women and children," she said. "... And we're finding some really neat little things. Maybe we'll find one (artifact) a season, so not chock-full of artifacts, but they've been very telling pieces that people can really relate to."

Through the interviews, the Kaisers learned families spent time in the front yard as a community. This helped, Lovasz-Kaiser said, because students were looking for the presence of women and children in the wrong area.

Some artifacts found over the years include cement pieces painted gray, which the Kaisers believe were part of the flooring; a 1947 penny; part of a hard rubber pedal that may have belonged to a child's tricycle; part of a white bow-shaped barrette; a white hoop earring; a broken piece of a letter bead; and parts of costume jewelry.

Lovasz-Kaiser said the jewelry could be a sign of the women "trying to make themselves look pretty on a budget."

On Sept. 26, a student found a button that could be from women's clothing, according to Kaiser. He said it seemed to be a Mother of Pearl imitation made of plastic.

"It was very much intended to look expensive," he said. "They certainly are trying to be middle class or upper class even, but they just don't have the money."

Kaiser said it's not just a class - it's a research project that he hopes to turn into a book at some point.

Corrigan and Ahrens, both archaeology majors, came to UE for the undergraduate program.

Corrigan, who's from the Chicago area, said she's learned patience through her classes.

"Archaeology combines travel, history, working with your hands and precision," she said. "Which not a lot of disciplines do."

Ahrens, 19, is from Kansas. One thing she enjoys about archaeology is that it uses all of your senses.

"I really enjoy being up close and personal with history," she said. "I feel like you get a sense of what actually happened and you get to discover the things yourself. ... Archaeology really sets you up for anything you want to go into because most of what you're learning is critical-thinking skills and how to apply those in your work."

Kaiser agrees, and said the skills students learn are easily transferable to other jobs.

"We're just training a whole new generation of archaeologists," he said.

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Source: Evansville Courier & Press, http://bit.ly/1PvtOPe

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Information from: Evansville Courier & Press, http://www.courierpress.com