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Erie
County Historic Cemetery Survey Project
Project
description:
This
project, begun in 2001, involves the field documentation of
all of Erie County's historic cemeteries. Recording will take
place both at the level of the cemetery, and for individual
monuments. The project, which combines the work of Mercyhurst
Archaeological Institute faculty, staff, and students aims to
produce a comprehensive database of historic cemetery information
for Erie County, which will then serve as the basis for a number
of research projects both by Mercyhurst personnel, and members
of the local community interested in gravestone studies and
funerary archaeology. In this endeavor MAI has partnered with
the Erie Society for Genealogical Research who have compiled
a cemetery index and inscription record for a number of cemeteries
in the county.
Project
objectives:
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Identification
of extant and prior cemeteries by township via archival research
and informant interviews (Harrisburg State Historic Preservation
Office, Erie Co. Historical Society, Erie Genealogical Society,
Erie County township offices)
- Erie
County's Cemeteries Web site development MAI Faculty and Student
Research topics: -Changing local attitudes to death in Erie Co.
during last c.200 years and their relationship to broader, regional
and natural trends.
- Use
of regional funerary symbolism over time
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Relationship between funerary display/investment, and wealth/social
status and ethnicity over time
- Relationship
between monument material choices and social/economic factors
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Construction and reproduction of gender identities and familial
relations via monument inscriptions, decoration, and spatial distribution
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Documentation of local/regional monument/carving industry
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Contrasting rural and urban cemeteries trends
- Decline
of rural community/family burial practices
- Cemetery
upkeep issues (changing importance of ancestors/kin/past)
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Cremation and the cemetery
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Significance of spatial organization of cemeteries over time
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Appearance, use, and decline of white bronze memorials
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Recent identity expression on monuments
| Early
19th century "urn and willow" motif on marble tombstone |
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| Erie
Cemetery, influenced by the "rural cemetery" movement
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| A
typical 20th century lawn park cemetery |
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| A
typical 19th century rural community cemetery |
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| Student
mapping a cemetery Gravestone recording |
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