The Rural Cemetery Movement and Collective Memory

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Mortuary Monuments and Archaeology: Current Research" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Rural Cemetery Movement represented a radical departure in the ways people thought about and interacted with burial spaces, expanding beyond burial spaces only into places people visited on a regular basis. As such, they became not just burial grounds alone, but community assets. As a place where people visit for leisure, the appearance of the cemetery and its grave markers took on new importance. Gravestones became emblems not of faith or salvation but of earthly accomplishments and status. The monuments and markers themselves became ways to articulate community values and express collective memory through their size and materials, locations, epitaphs. Cemeteries reinforced this by printing tours and tour routes, offering carriages, and publishing booklets highlighting prominent figures’ burial sites. Now, scholars from a number of fields are examining Rural Cemeteries in new ways, seeking to discern the ways the remaining physical record reflects nineteenth-century Americans.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Mortuary Monuments and Archaeology: Current Research

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1083