As part of the RPA Certified Field School Showcase, this project highlights archaeological work uncovering the rarely discussed history of post–Civil War convict labor in the American South. Students are helping excavate the remains of Tennessee’s largest private convict labor prison, shedding light on how race, profit, and law intersected to exploit incarcerated people in the 1880s and 1890s.

Fieldwork takes place in South Cumberland State Park at the site of the Lone Rock Stockade, a late‑19th‑century prison complex once used by the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company to manage leased convict laborers. The research examines how this stockade fit into a larger industrial landscape that reshaped the Southern economy after the Civil War.

Through excavation and analysis, students contribute directly to understanding 19th‑century incarceration, the lived experiences of those imprisoned, and the broader systems of forced prison labor that continued long after emancipation.

Find out more at: Tennessee Convict Stockade Archaeology Project