Silent City on a Hill

by Linden, Blanche M. G.; Cheek, Richard; Betsch, Carol

• ISBN13: 9781558495715
• ISBN10: 1558495711
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-24
• Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Pr

Summary

Originally published in 1989, this book offers an insightful inquiry into the intellectual and cultural origins of Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first landscape in the United States to be designed in the picturesque style. Inspired by developments in England and France, and founded in 1831, Mount Auburn became the prototype for the "rural cemetery" movement and was an important precursor of many of America's public parks, beginning with New York City's Central Park. This new edition has been completely redesigned in a larger formet, with new photographs and a new epilogue that carries the story forward into the twentieth century.

Table of Contents

Common Pits and Grim Graveyards	p. 15
The English Garden: Memory, Nature, and Design	p. 29
The French Cult of Ancestors and the Birth of Pere Lachaise	p. 55
An American Sensibility to Melancholy	p. 81
The Necessity for Monuments: Art and Public Commemoration in the Young Republic	p. 95
Grave Problems: Urban Burial Controversies	p. 117
The Cemetery Idea and the Founding of Mount Auburn	p. 133
Cemetery or Garden? Landscape Design and Conflicting Institutional Purposes	p. 155
Art and Nature Balanced: Creating a Marble History in the Forest Cemetery	p. 175
Embellishing the Picturesque: Structures in the Landscape	p. 207
The Rage for Mount Auburn: Sacred Site or Pleasure Ground?	p. 237
Transformation to the "Garden" or "Sculptured" Cemetery	p. 259
Epilogue: More Chapters of Change	p. 279
Black-and-white photographs by Carol Betsch-following page	p. 290
Trustees and Officers of Mount Auburn with Terms of Service	p. 291
Notable American "Rural" or "Garden " Cemeteries and Major Designers	p. 293
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