They Walked and Sleep in Beauty: African Americans and the Rural Cemetery Movement in the Midwest

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The study of African American cemeteries and burial customs from an archaeological context has been growing more prevalent in the last two decades, but most focus is confined to the search of “Africanisms” in burial practices and the issues concerning the preservation of burial grounds, particularly those belonging to enslaved and undocumented individuals. Little has been examined concerning African Americans and the intersect of death, landscape, aesthetics, race, and class, particularly during the 19th century rural cemetery movement of Western Europe and North American. The movement not only incorporated a new philosophy towards death as well as visions for urban planning but mobilized during an era of great change for people of African descent living in Euro-American society. This study involves the non-invasive analysis of 19th century African American burials in Michigan cemeteries to examine how blacks interacted with the rural cemetery movement.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow