9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon          
Foil Impressions Workshop, Basic—Outdoors—Participants will use cast forms to learn the techniques for foil rubbing impressions of gravestones.  Maximum 15 people

9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon          
Digital Photography & Computer Follow-up—Vale Cemetery—The Photography Workshop will consist of two parts. First, in the field, the proper techniques of photographing both flat gravestones and statuary will be demonstrated. Topics covered will include proper equipment, supplies, techniques, lighting, and composition. All of these topics are camera – independent. Whether your camera is digital or uses film, all of the above is the same. Don’t forget your camera!

 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM
Digital Photography & Computer Follow-up—Frank Calidonna, Leader—Classroom (afternoon session) The second part of this workshop will be in a classroom and will cover computer procedures for the digital or film photographer who scans his/her images. Basic procedures for editing, organizing, and storing digital images will also be covered. Further, there will be a discussion about various software packages such as PhotoShop and PaintShop as well as others.  Don’t forget your camera!

1:30 PM to 3:30 PM
Point & Shoot Photography—Vale Cemetery—Join Jeff Richman, Green-Wood Cemetery's historian and the photographer for his book, Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery: New York's Buried Treasure, for some basics that will help improve your photographs of cemeteries: where to stand, how to compose a photograph, light, shadow, flash, exposure times, etc. Your camera can do remarkable things; it will work even better if you learn how to help it out. Bring your camera.

1:30 PM to 3:30 PM                
Foil Impressions Workshop, Advanced– Vale Cemetery—In this workshop participants will learn the process of making gravestone rubbings with light-weight foil. Foil impressions require more time to create than traditional rubbings on paper but can capture depth of carving and other design detail. Also, there is no risk of inadvertently damaging stones because the impressions are created without using paint, crayon, or wax in the cemetery. Topics covered in the workshop will be selection of suitable stones for rubbing, types of foil, the right tools, rubbing technique, and finishing. Each participant will be able to complete a rubbing during the class that can be taken home, finished, and framed. Participants should be prepared to sit on the ground for an hour or more and should bring a towel or cushion, a hat, and insect repellant.

 FRIDAY JUNE 26
9:00 AM to 3:30 PM                
Conservation Workshop, Advanced-This workshop is geared for all those who have already attended a basic gravestone conservation workshop. The scope will continue where the basic workshop left off, elaborating on many topics and expanding to include more complex conservation procedures. Clothing: Please wear clothes well suited for outdoor work like gardening, including boots or work shoes and leather -work gloves. Please also remember to bring along sun lotion and or bug spray if you desire. All attendees of the workshop will learn: Rigging and lifting fallen monuments employing a overhead and chain hoist and tri-pod. ▪This will include a detailed discussion on varying techniques and approaches for joining stone elements. ▪Drilling and the installation of blind pinning. ▪The addition of structural pinning is a complex subject, which is not often fully understood. It is sometimes necessary to add internal support to fractured or multi-piece monuments. This technique will be discussed and demonstrated on a suitable stone. ▪Historic Mortars and the need for in-fill, is often employed, during the conservation process of gravestones and historic masonry structures. A discussion regarding historic mortars will evolved into the use and relation in graveyard preservation. A number of varying mortars will then be mixed and pigments added to achieve colored mortars. ▪All attendants will be encouraged to help apply historic pointing mortar or in-fill, in a suitable situation. ▪Historic masonry, and gravestone cleaning will discussed in more detail then in the basic conservation workshop. Additional stones and varying techniques will be employed and conducted by the attendants.

9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon
Basic Volunteer- Albany Rural Cemetery (maximum 15 people) - This workshop is designed to meet the needs of cemetery volunteers.  Car pool or college van.

 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM
Carving Workshop, Basic—Vale Cemetery (maximum 8 people—all day session—lunch at Union College at 12:00) Participants will learn  basic carving methods and will hand carve a rising/setting sun image on a small slate "gravestone" to take home. Mallets and chisels are provided. Students must bring their own safety glasses.

9:00 AM to 12:00 Noon          
Stone Rubbing Workshop, Basic—Vale Cemetery (maximum 15 people)

 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM 
Stone Rubbing Workshop, Advanced—Vale Cemetery (maximum 15 people—participants must complete a Basic workshop before signing up for the Advanced)

 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM                
Reading Worn Inscriptions on Marble Gravestones Workshop– Vale Cemetery

1:30 PM to 4:00 PM                
Tour of Jewish Cemetery- (car pool)

Evening Programs

Chaired by Ian W. Brown

Lecture 1: Wednesday, June 24, 8:00–8:20 P.M.

In Defense of the Fence: A History of Managing Lot Fences in a Permanent Place - presenter  Natalie Wampler

This paper highlights the challenges of managing historic lot fences in a permanent place that is affected by time and changing taste. As the first large-scale designed landscape in North America open to the public, Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was immensely popular and became the model for hundreds of other great “rural” cemeteries across America. During the mid-nineteenth century over half of the family lots at Mount Auburn Cemetery had enclosures, 1,700 fences in all. At the start of the twentieth century, over half of those fences had been removed and they continued to disappear as the century progressed. In recent years fences have started to reappear, testament to family and friends of lots who are adamantly defending the practice. 
 

 Natalie Wampler is the Preservation & Facilities Planner at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  

Lecture 2: Wednesday, June 24, 8:25­–8:45 P.M.

The Evolution of the Jewish Presence in Non-denominational Garden Cemeteries Such as Mt. Auburn

 - presented by Joshua L. Segal

Most of the earliest Jewish immigrants to America were not religious, but it was clear that church-yards were not going to be the final resting place for most Jews. This paper documents the evolution of Jewish burying patterns. We used to refer to America as the “melting pot” where second generation Americans had shed their ethnicity. After World War II, however, ethnicity became acceptable. America is now more analogous to a salad, where its components are individually identifiable, rather than a melting pot where homogeneity is the bottom line. It appeared that the earliest Jewish Americans buried in Garden Cemeteries were interested in being part of the melting pot”, whereas now many are quite comfortable with the salad metaphor.

Joshua L. Segal is a Rabbi at Congregation Betenu in Amherst, New Hampshire. He is a member of the AGS Board of Trustees.

 Lecture 3: Thursday, June 25, 7:00–7:20 P.M.

Anglo-American Biases Against Italy: Verano Cemetery, Rome - presented by Jim Freeman

Rome's main burial ground since 1804, Verano presents a particular 
problem to North American or North European visitors. They have received 
so many negative judgments from their countrymen about Rome in general and Verano in particular that a fresh response seems unlikely. Anti-Roman prejudice has simmered in the western world since New Testament times, intensified during the Reformation, become an expected 
part of Victorian tourists' expectations and peaked during Mussolini's ill-starred alliance with Hitler. The cemetery suffered from these accumulated slurs about Italians' emotionalism, conceit, love of earthly pleasure and fierce competitiveness when building family monuments. Consequently, authorities like Eleanor Clark dismissed Verano as material proof of national degradation. A visitor to Verano, however, may profit from its unique combination of tradition and modernity. Etched
portraits, heartfelt epitaphs, and life-like statues coexist with impersonal Bauhaus mausoleums. The easy juxtaposition of private and personal markers ultimately reveals complex character traits that have allowed Romans to survive change for two millennia.

Jim Freeman is a Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is a member of the AGS Board of Trustees and Editor of the AGS Quarterly.

 Lecture 4: Thursday, June 25, 7:25–7:45 P.M.

Marble for the Multitudes: Industrialization of the Monument Trade in Western Massachusetts, c. 1790-1850 - presented by Bob Drinkwater

“The marbles of Western New England in variety of color, in fineness of texture and in durability surpass those of any other region of the United States” – wrote Prof. Ezra Brainerd, in 1885, more than a century after the first marble quarries were opened in western New England. Grave markers and monuments cut from marble quarried along the western borders of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, can be found in cemeteries hundreds of miles from the ancient sea beds where they originated. Using data gleaned from county histories, gazetteers and other sources, this paper describes the growth of the marble industry in western New England during the first half of the nineteenth century, and suggests how advances in manufacturing and transportation technology promoted the mass production and proliferation of marble markers and monuments. It focuses on western Massachusetts, the area where the author has done the most extensive research, and notes related developments in Connecticut and Vermont.       

Bob Drinkwater is a past President of the Association for Gravestone Studies.

Lecture 5: Thursday, June 25, 7:50–8:10 P.M.

Beechwood Cemetery’s Mausoleum: the Case for Building a Community Mausoleum in the 1920s - presented by Dorothy J. Smith

In 1933 Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, Canada opened an elegant community mausoleum in its late nineteenth-century garden cemetery. Investing in a community mausoleum was not an easy decision for Beechwood's management. The cemetery had limited resources to invest in improving the grounds and yet management was aware of the aesthetic demands set by being both a garden cemetery and the main Protestant cemetery for Canada's capital. Finally, in 1929 the Directors decided to enter into an agreement with a company specializing in the construction and operation of community mausoleums, Canada Mausoleums Limited. The mausoleum was a success, immediately in the sale of vaults and long-term in its aesthetics. It was also a failure in that by 1933 the business case for the building had changed, causing financial hardship for both builder and cemetery.

Dorothy J. Smith is a student of history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. 

 Lecture 6: Thursday, June 25, 8:15–8:35 P.M.

Burying Pariahs: The Evergreens Cemetery of Brooklyn - presented by John Rousmaniere

This talk concerns a feature of one of New York City’s better known cemeteries—The Evergreens, in eastern Brooklyn. Founded in 1849, and the only cemetery designed by the noted landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, The Evergreens has 225 acres of rolling high ground with spectacular prospects of Manhattan and many handsome monuments in classic styles honoring successful Brooklyn and New York businessmen and public figures. Most striking about the Evergreens, however, are the large number and high visibility of plots for four populations traditionally regarded by most Americans as social pariahs: merchant seamen, African-Americans, Chinese immigrants, and “shady” actors and other performers. The story of how these oppressed people came in such large numbers to the Evergreens is the subject of this talk.

John Rousmaniere is an independent scholar who holds graduate degrees in history and divinity from Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary.

 Lecture 7: Friday, June 26, 7:05–7:25 P.M.

Convenience Versus
Convention in the British Isles: Circa 16-18th Century Incised Letterforms  - presented by Lynne J. Baggett  and William C. Baggett

This paper presents a diverse selection of carved examples of incised letterforms that appeared on stone grave markers in the British Isles (c. 16-18 centuries). During this era, the vocation of letterform carving was dominated by local traditions in matters of bereavement, commemoration and worship. Tradesmen typically spent their entire lives isolated in the same village or county where they were born. They were trained by senior craftsmen, often of the same family who had spent their lifetime in the same situation. It was a vocation that required minimal literacy and tended to focus on passing along essential technical expertise, as well as vernacular mannerisms and attitudes concerning issues of style and quality. This presentation seeks to enhance the interest in these often forgotten examples in stone and to reveal them as innovative masterpieces in their own right.     

Lynne Baggett is an Associate Professor of Art at Louisiana State University and William C. Baggett is the Chair of the Department of Art and Design at the University of Southern Mississippi.

 Lecture 8: Friday, June 26, 7:30–7:50 P.M.

Memorializing the Civil War Dead: Modernity and Corruption under the Grant Administration  - presented by Bruce S. Elliott

The appalling losses of the Civil War compelled a break with past practice and the institution of national memorializing of the individual sacrifice of the common soldier, as well as of their collective devotion to the union. But the burgeoning literature on Civil War commemoration pays scant attention to the actual production of the headstones that were contracted by the War Department to replace deteriorating wooden headboards in the new national cemeteries. Producing hundreds of thousands of individual headstones to standard specifications tested the capacity of what was still largely a craft industry to move closer to modernity. Entrepreneurs, many of them strangers to the monument industry, proposed solutions ranging from offshore sweatshops to innovative technologies. The scale of the enterprise held out the prospect of significant profits to those who could bring together the right combination of labour, materials, and technology. But state subsidy also raised the specter of corruption. The contract process emerged as one of a series of scandals that plagued the Grant administration and Grant’s Secretary of War, sullying the great project of naming the dead.

Bruce S. Elliott is a professor of history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.  He teaches a university seminar course on gravestones and cemeteries and spoke at AGS in 2008 about the gravestones of Prince Edward Island. 

 Lecture 9: Friday, June 26, 7:55–8:15 P.M.

The Rural Cemetery Movement in the South - presented by June Hadden Hobbs

The Rural/Garden Cemetery Movement in the South did more than simply reflect the cultural values of the Northeast. Though influenced by the same Romantic ideology that fueled the founding of Mt. Auburn and other rural cemeteries, the trend in the more agrarian South preserved an already established tradition, creating what James Farrell calls “truly rural cemeteries, instead of the idealized urban counterpoint” in the Northeast. More importantly, the movement in the South, and particularly the Southeast, became closely associated with memorializing the Lost Cause after the Civil War ended. Thus, the most elaborate, carefully planned sections of the cemeteries are often Confederate memorials, some of them created specifically to address the exclusion of the Confederate dead from federal cemeteries. Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina, for example, was originally founded in 1867 to provide burial space for Confederate soldiers disinterred from a wartime graveyard that became a federal burial ground. Many times the planning of such memorials to the Lost Cause fell to an association of Southern women, whose involvement gave gendered nuances to the landscaping and ornamentation. In addition, gardening practices in the South gave Southern garden cemeteries a distinct character. 

June Hadden Hobbs is Professor of English at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. She is a member of the AGS Board of Trustees and the editor of Markers.

 Lecture 10: Friday, June 26, 8:20–8:40 P.M.

The Vermont Marble Company and The Industrialization of the Headstone - presented by Anne Tait

As with most trades in nineteenth-century United States, the headstone business went from a local craft to a national industry. Redfield Proctor was the titan who brought it into this position. As Civil War colonel, later Secretary of War, U.S. Senator, Governor of Vermont, and President of the Vermont Marble Company, Proctor used his influence to absorb quarries from Vermont to Alaska. He established a centralized headstone mill in Vermont with salesrooms in every major center of the country. This dominance of the industry affected not only the way in which headstones were promoted, but changed the way that the public consumed them. Nineteenth-century memorial art evolved from being the purview of local craftsmen who used readily available stone and locally accessible imagery to a national industry dominated by Vermont Marble Company. This changed the landscape of the cemetery through the stones and the manner of choosing them to memorialized the dead.

Anne Tait is Assistant Professor of Art at the School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation, Roger Williams University.

 Lecture 11: Saturday, June 27, 8:05–8:25 P.M.

Sunny, The Best Dog Ever—Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, Westchester County, New York - presented by Elizabeth Broman

This paper examines the origins and growth of pet cemeteries, an intriguing and changing aspect of memorialization and death in American culture. It briefly looks at past and current practices and trends in the culture of pets and death, and then specifically addresses Hartsdale, the first American pet burial ground started in 1896. Pets have always met a need for sporting and hunting abilities, security, protection, and companionship. As people are electing to have fewer or no children and are having longer life expectancies with or without partners and extended family units, companion animals are often considered “part of the family”. For some, cremations, monuments and burials for their animals are as important as those of themselves and family members, a pattern that is very evident at the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery.

Elizabeth Broman is the Reference Librarian at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum Library, Smithsonian Institution.

 Lecture 12: Saturday, June 27, 8:30–8:50 P.M.

Cherished Chickens and Magic Mushrooms: Grave Sights on Martha’s Vineyard  - presented by Judith Trainor

This presentation focuses on two deaths roughly a century apart: Nancy Luce (1814-1890) and John Belushi (1949-1982). The graves of these individuals, both publically known figures in their time, are located in neighboring towns on Martha’s Vineyard. Their graves remain sightseeing destinations for summer visitors. Nancy Luce named and wrote poems to her chickens, who were her only companions for the last forty years of her life. John Belushi, on the other hand, was a star of television and movies. The events surrounding his funeral and burial are worthy of the characters he played on screen. The reasons that the public visits these graves and how public behavior has impacted the appearance of the gravesites will be explored in this talk.

 Judith Trainor is the Director of Budget and Planning at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester. She is a longtime member of the AGS Board of Trustees and is its current Treasurer.

8:45 AM to 3:30 PM   “A” Tour—Saint Agnes Cemetery and Albany Rural Cemetery

9:15 AM ‐ 11:30 AM  Saint Agnes Cemetery—A 2‐hour walking tour of St. Agnes, a Catholic Cemetery. The bus will leave at 11:45 AM for a 2‐minute drive (5‐minute walk) to the pond at Albany Rural Cemetery. (Lunch on the bus or on the grass.)

1 PM ‐ 3 PM ‐Albany Rural Cemetery ‐ choose one:

a.) 2‐hour walking tour of Albany Rural

b.) 2‐hour hiking tour through the glacial ravines, with burials

8:45 AM to 3:30 PM “O” Tour—Oakwood Cemetery  and Knickerbocker Mansion

9:15 AM ‐ 12 Noon ‐ Oakwood Cemetery. The Chapel and Crematory will be viewed first, then a one and a half hour walking tour through the cemetery.

11:45 AM ‐ Bus will leave for the Knickerbocker Mansion restoration project in Schaghticoke, NY.  (Lunch on the bus or under a tent with picnic tables.) During lunch Joe Ferrannini, President of the Knickerbocker Mansion Historical Society, will lead small groups through the mansion.

1:30 PM ‐ Bus will leave for Elmwood Cemetery. We'll have one and a half hours to walk through the cemetery with quite a few tall white bronze monuments with portraits done in relief.

8:45 AM to 3:00 PM “T” Tour—Albany Rural Trolley Tour and Maybee  Farm Museum and Cemetery

9:30 AM ‐ Tour will take the Union College 24 passenger van to the Chapel at Albany Rural Cemetery, public restrooms available. The tour will board the Albany AquaDucks Trolley for a 2 hour riding tour through the cemetery known as the "Hudson 400". The tour will return on the college van to have box lunches at Union College.

1:15 PM ‐ Union College van will take the group to the Mabee Farm Museum and Cemetery for a one and a half hour self-guided tour.

 SOME OF THE EXCITING PARTICIPATION SESSIONS ATTENDEES CAN CHOOSE FROM ARE:

1.)  Charles Marchant - leading a discussion on Vermont Old Cemetery Association's Stones & Bones project and on Vermont's restoration projects.

2.)  Judy Juntunen and Robert W. Keeler- leading a discussion on Oregon Commission on Historic Cemeteries - Established in 1999, the Oregon Commission on Historic Cemeteries (OCHC) is directed by a board of seven citizens, who bring a broad knowledge of the diverse issues concerning preservation, restoration, care, and advocacy for historic cemeteries and gravesites, and their importance in Oregon’s past, present and future. The Commission has one fulltime, salaried Coordinator with support staff shared within the Heritage Programs Division of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.  The OCHC develops and maintains a listing of historic cemeteries and gravesites throughout the state; awards grants to assist communities in the protection, maintenance and development of historic cemeteries; provides technical assistance on grave marker maintenance, cemetery structures, objects, features and landscapes; and develops legislation benefiting historic cemeteries.  Oregon is one of the few states to recognize the importance of historic cemeteries and gravesites as significant cultural resources by creating an office within state government to serve these aims. This Participation Session is designed as a forum for AGS Conference attendees to learn more about the Oregon Commission on Historic Cemeteries, to share experiences and programs in their own states concerning issues relating to historic cemeteries, and to explore the possibilities, prospects, pros and cons, of roles for state government in efforts to protect, maintain, and develop historic cemeteries as cultural resources.  The Session will begin with a brief overview of the OCHC and its programs, followed by a discussion of how other state governments are currently, or might become, actively involved in historic cemetery issues.

3.)  Ian W. Brown- The Native American Marking of Graves: Examples from Prehistory and History- Throughout time Native American populations have marked their graves in a variety of manners. In this session we will examine the different culture areas of North America (Arctic, Southwest, Northwest Coast, etc.) with the focus being on aboveground representations of burials. Although prehistorically there never was writing to indicate the names or life spans of specific individuals, messages often were given on graves as to the roles and statuses of the deceased. Changes in the marking of graves occurred in many areas during historic times that directly related to contact with European populations. - Ian Brown, Ph.D., Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Ian is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama and Curator of Gulf Coast Archaeology at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. Prior to coming to Alabama, Brown spent a decade at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, where he curated the permanent exhibit in the Hall of the North American Indian and taught in the Department of Anthropology. He received his B.A. degree from Harvard and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown, where his advisor, James Deetz, gave him a life-long love of gravestones. Brown specializes in the archaeology and history of southeastern Indians and has spent almost four decades excavating sites in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Between 2004-07 he was a Distinguished Teaching Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Alabama and in 2008 he received the National Alumni Association, Outstanding Commitment to Teaching Award. He is a member of the AGS Board of Trustees.

 4.)  Natalie Wampler-Monument Inscription Celebration: “Honorable, benevolent and brave”-One of the most exciting developments from Mount Auburn Cemetery’s monument inscription program has been the capturing of information about children and the discovery of cenotaphs which detail the lives of people not buried at Mount Auburn. The information captured is often heart-felt biographical information not recorded elsewhere. In addition to recording deteriorating inscriptions on the site, many inscriptions are able to be re-created. Through the use of online searches many inscriptions which are nearly illegible have been connected to a literary source and therefore the essence of the inscription, if not the exact content of the inscription has been captured.  Mount Auburn’s Monument Inscription Workshops train volunteers in recording inscriptions. After attending a workshop, volunteers are able to continue recording inscriptions on their own. During this lecture, Natalie Wampler, Preservation & Facilities Planner at Mount Auburn will discuss the interpretive value of recording deteriorating monument inscriptions through the workshops held at the Cemetery and will share some of the interesting stories of residents buried at the Cemetery, as told by the inscriptions on their monuments.

5.)  The entire afternoon on Wednesday, June 24, will include presentations related to cemetery preservation.

1:05 PM- 1:55

Conservation of the Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, Jr.  Crypt, Old Burying Ground, Durham, Connecticut

Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, Jr.  was the first minister in Durham, CT and served the community from 1706 until his death in 1756.  He was born in Hatfield Massachusetts in 1681, to the parents of Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey Senior and Abigail Strong.  His grandfather, Reverend Charles Chauncey, was the second president of Harvard College from 1654-1672.   Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, Jr. was the first student to graduate from the Collegiate School in Saybrook, CT.  The Collegiate School was chartered in 1701 for youth to be educated for “employment in Church & Civil State.” The school relocated to New Haven, CT in 1716 and was renamed Yale College in 1718.  The Connecticut sandstone Crypt of Reverend Nathaniel Chauncey, Jr. suffered from years of weathering, organic growth, disaggregation of the stone, spalling and failure of the original stone foundation.  This presentation will outline the conservation efforts by ConservArt LLC- Francis Miller conservator, to preserve the historic grave-marker.

2:00- 3:20

Graveyard Preservation Roundtable

This will be a new event for an AGS conference. The moderated roundtable discussion format, will allow questions to be posed from all in attendance, and a handful of professional conservators will offer ideas, advice and potential philosophical differences in the fields relating to gravestone, monument, and cemetery preservation. A group of photographs regarding gravestone preservation, will be included as part of this presentation. Please submit photographs in advance, regarding cemetery preservation questions or concerns, to Jon Appell, jwappell@gmail.com

3:30- 4:45

Gravestone Conservation Workshop Introduction

Open to all conference attendants

The traditional pre-workshop introduction has now been moved from the previous evening time-slot, to the late afternoon. CR Jones will offer a slide show presentation, over viewing many common problems associated with gravestone and monument preservation. Jon Appell will then introduce all of the instructors who will participate in the conservation workshops. The seminar will conclude with an overview of the following days workshops, including the location, scope and safety

related topics.