Grave Marker
date: label: date made
content: n.d.
name: label: referenced
content: Cowart, Nathan
label: referenced
content: Savage, Sarah
label: maker
content: unknown
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: For many years, iron stake number 72 marked the final resting place of either Sarah Savage, an African-American woman, or Nathanial Cowart, a European American man, in the cemetery at the State Hospital at Milledgeville, Georgia. The ambiguity is because administrators used numbers more than once and the stakes were removed from the ground in the late twentieth-century. When Savage and Cowart died in 1880, their graves were located by a number rather than their name or dates. This stark record-keeping practice was common in state institutions across the country. Former patient in-mates, their families, and descendants have been replacing such markers with proper recognition in an effort to restore their humanity.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States
topic: label: Subject
content: Disabilities
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Health & Medicine
label: See more items in
content: Disabilities
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Cranford, Peter G.. History of Milledgeville State Hospital
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2000.0139.01
label: accession number
content: 2000.1039
label: catalog number
content: 2000.1039.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: grave marker
label: Object Name
content: marker
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: iron (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 51 cm x 10 cm x 1 cm; 20 1/16 in x 3 15/16 in x 3/8 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1/2 in x 2 5/8 in x 19 3/4 in; 1.27 cm x 6.6675 cm x 50.165 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 24 in x 24 in; 60.96 cm x 60.96 cm