Migration of the Dead is a digital history project I created using Omeka to trace the journeys of Catholic burials in 19th-century St. Louis. During the 1840s and 1850s, city expansion and waves of cholera forced many cemeteries to relocate beyond the growing urban core. But not all burials were treated equally in that process.

This project asks a difficult question: Did race and whiteness determine who received a peaceful final resting place—and who didn’t?

Some remains were respectfully moved to Calvary Cemetery, a serene and carefully planned burial ground. Others were deposited in the crypts beneath St. Bridget of Erin, a church built by recent Irish immigrants. At the time, Irish Catholics held a precarious, “in-between” racial status—not quite white by dominant standards, but not fully excluded either. Could that liminality have made St. Bridget’s an acceptable place to unceremoniously store the dead?

Using digital mapping tools, archival research, and racial theory, I created this project to explore how power, identity, and space intersect in something as universal—and political—as burial.

🗺️ Explore the project on Omeka below

Role: Creator, researcher, writer
Tools Used: Omeka, archival records, historical mapping
Themes: Race, burial practices, public memory, Catholic identity