Further Reading

If you are interested in learning more about gravestones, mortuary practices, or material culture in general, here are some books you might enjoy. In each category, I have starred those books that provide the most useful introductions to those categories.


Early American Gravestones:
  • ***Memorials for Children of Change: The Art of Early New England Stonecarving, by Dickran and Ann Tashjian
  • Mallet & Chisel: Gravestone Carvers of Newport, Rhode Island, in the 18th Century, by Vincent Luti
  • Gravestones of Early New England and the Men Who Made Them, 1653-1800, by Harriette Merrifield Forbes
  • Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and Its Symbols, 1650-1815, by Allan Ludwig
  • From Slate to Marble: Gravestone Traditions of Eastern Massachusetts 1770-1870, by James Blachowitz 
Mortuary Culture and Politics:
  • ***The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery, by Vincent Brown
  •  This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, by Drew Gilpin Faust
  •  Cemeteries & Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture, by Richard Meyer
  • Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England, by David Hall
  • The Puritan Way of Death: A Study in Religion, Culture, and Social Chang, by David Stannard   
  • Silent City on a Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston's Mount Auburn Cemetery, by Blanche Linden
  • The American Way of Death Revisited, by Jessica Mitford   
Material Culture:
  • ***In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life, by James Deetz
  •  Material Life in America, 1600-1800, edited by Robert Blair St. George
  • The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
  • Art as Evidence, by Jules Prown 
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