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Introduction To Cemeteries   Photo Shown . . . Section 11

     Prior to the 19th Century, Americans used church graveyards or available plots of land near their homes as burial sites for their dead and little attention was given to appearance based on Puritan ideas that excessive value should not be placed on worldly things and that mortal beings should not be glorified.

     Due to the lack of advanced medicine in the 19th Century, death was an omnipresent theme in Victorian Society, especially for women and children.  People died in the home with participation from the entire family in funeral preparations, bereavement, and regular visits to the family gravesite.  Written accounts with details of death were found in personal letters, newspapers, and printed epitaphs instructing the living on how to die with dignity.  The Victorian awareness of death was further intensified through the arts in mass produced romantic literature, mourning iconography and the decorative arts.

     It was during this period that Americans in urban communities became concerned that overcrowded graveyards could cause a serious health risk and they were appalled by the neglect and disrespect for the dead.  These concerns led to the formation of the Rural Cemetery.  Known as, "A City for the Dead," the Rural Cemetery was situated outside the city limits in rural surroundings.   The Victorians viewed these final resting places as "Heaven on Earth," and as a link to the ideal realm of the deceased loved ones.

     Mount Auburn Cemetery at Cambridge, outside of Boston, was founded 1831 and was the prototype for most other rural cemeteries.  It was designed with ample space to provide for family plots enclosed with iron fences to ensure privacy in the next world.

     Picturesque landscapes of hills, avenues, wooded areas, and even waterfalls were included to encourage visitation.  Sculpture and tombstone art were intended to elevate tastes of visitors and to commemorate the deeds of the dead.  By the 1850's nearly every city and large town boasted at least on rural cemetery.  Churchyards that serviced the smaller communities also began to follow the Mt. Auburn example.

     After the Civil War, Americans began to view death and cemeteries differently.  Now, plot fences were thought to be an extension of class division and exclusiveness as well as an added maintenance cost.  Family plots were marked with inconspicuous border markers that would not interfere with open vistas of the Lawn System.  The Lawn System, devised of a more rigid grid pattern, replaced the more traditional picturesque format.

     As the Victorian Era drew to a close, medicine was making steady advances and mortality rates decreased.  Death was not the everyday occurrence that it had once been as doctors concentrated on saving lives and the role of the funeral director replaced the family as the main participants in the dying process.   An overall secularization of life prevailed in Society and ideal of living to die no longer made sense.  Social and economic opportunities increased and made living much more attractive.  By the early 20th Century, with Society's new love of life, death was treated as obscene or unmentionable.  Biological aspects were left to the medical experts and funeral director.  It was not unusual for children to grow to adulthood without ever having attended a funeral.  Only recently has this taboo of death been reconsidered.  Today, Society is looking at the practicality of the social and psychological function of Victorian Mourning as a way to deal with death in a dignified and hygienic matter.

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Dunmore Cemetery
Cemetery Association Of Dunmore

400 Church Street, P.O. Box 15
Dunmore, PA 18512

Phone: (570) 343-8536 | Fax: (570) 343-3799
Email:  dunmorecemetery@verizon.net