Mount Auburn Cemetery: Preserving Community Memories
FAIN: PY-253094-17
Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery (Cambridge, MA 02138-5517)
Bree Harvey (Project Director: May 2016 to August 2019)
Two digitization days for photographs,
documents, artifacts, and ephemera related to the 100,000 people buried at
Mount Auburn Cemetery, and preservation workshops for participants. Notable
figures buried there include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Buckminster Fuller,
and Isabella Stewart Gardner. The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery
would contact those on file for family lots and graves, as well as partner with
community organizations to publicize the events, which will also include
workshops on preservation, digitization, and preserving digital collections. Materials digitized would enhance a mobile
app currently under development, which uses GPS coordinates to document the
graves and monuments and which includes biographical and historical information
about those buried at the cemetery.
The Friends of Mount Auburn
Cemetery (FOMAC) seeks a Common Heritage grant to host two digitization days
which will aid in the discovery and digitization of a range of archival
cultural heritage materials held by the public that help to tell the story of
Mount Auburn Cemetery and the 100,000 people buried and commemorated here.
Consultants from the Northeast Document Conservation Center will hold two
separate but programmatically identical "digitization days", one each
in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, organize digitization, and create
metadata. Digitized materials will be provided free of charge to the public who
bring in their documents and artifacts and, with permission, will be used as
interpretive and educational content for Mount Auburn's new free Mobile App as
well as shared on the Digital Commonwealth. FOMAC will also hold a series of
public programs to highlight the importance of preservation and provide
additional context for the digitization process.
Associated Products
Remembering the Great and the Good: Discoveries from Mount Auburn's Family Digitization Project (Exhibition)Title: Remembering the Great and the Good: Discoveries from Mount Auburn's Family Digitization Project
Curator: Bree Harvey
Abstract: Over the course of nearly 200 years, Mount Auburn has become the final resting place for all those wishing to be buried at the Cemetery, regardless of race, creed, or religion. Mount Auburn is celebrated as the final resting place for Boston's cultural and intellectual leaders including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Jacobs, Nathaniel Bowditch, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Fannie Farmer, R. Buckminster Fuller, and B.F. Skinner. Joining its "notable residents" are the servants, soldiers, sailors, midwives, blacksmiths, and everyday people who worked tirelessly to build the economies of Boston, Cambridge, and the surrounding communities. The stories for most of these 100,000 residents are still waiting to be discovered.
With its current Family Digitization project, Mount Auburn is strengthening the role of this "landscape of memory," a place founded to offer the lessons of history through a "communion with the dead." Each month the Cemetery provides opportunities for the public to scan photographs, documents, ephemera, and other small objects that help to tell the stories of those buried at Mount Auburn. The materials digitized to date have already added immensely to what we know about those buried at the Cemetery. An exploration of these items also reminds us not only about who we remember but also why and how we remember them.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
https://mountauburn.org/family-digitization-project/Primary URL Description: Online exhibit link
Stories from the Watertown and Cambridge Community Digitization Days (Article)Title: Stories from the Watertown and Cambridge Community Digitization Days
Author: Kara Zelasko
Author: Brittany Costello
Abstract: This article was written by Kara Zelasko and Brittany Costello. Zelasko and Costello are students of Public History at Northeastern University who assisted with Mount Auburn’s Digitization Days this past October.
Year: 2018
Primary URL:
https://mountauburn.org/stories-from-the-watertown-and-cambridge-community-digitization-days/Primary URL Description: Article link on Mount Auburn's website
Access Model: Open access
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Friends of Mount Auburn E-Newsletter
Publisher: Mount Auburn Cemetery
Digitization Days: Revealing the Individuals in our Past (Article)Title: Digitization Days: Revealing the Individuals in our Past
Author: Anna Moir
Abstract: With over 100,000 people commemorated here, Mount Auburn Cemetery has served as a record for countless memories and historical periods ever since its founding. Our goal is to offer a deeper look at these diverse individuals whenever possible, with the stories and personalities beyond the monuments that represent them today. Thanks to a 2017 Common Heritage grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, we have had the opportunity to celebrate the lives and preserve the memories of our “residents” in new ways, through a series of digitization days that we began hosting in 2018. On the first Friday of each month, anyone with loved ones or ancestors buried at Mount Auburn can sign up to bring in family materials such as photographs and letters to have them digitized, free of charge. Not only are these documents preserved for the future, but they can help us tell a deeper story of the people buried at Mount Auburn through our new Online Memorial Pages feature on our website at www.mountauburn.org/OnlineMemorialPages.
Year: 2019
Primary URL:
https://mountauburn.org/digitization-days-revealing-the-individuals-in-our-past/Primary URL Description: Article link on Mount Auburn's website
Access Model: Open access
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Friends of Mount Auburn E-Newsletter
Publisher: Mount Auburn Cemetery