Stylistic Progression

Cranky Yankee has asked about the stylistic progression of gravestones/epitaphs in areas other than Boston, so I'm going to post a few progressions here. The death's head to soul effigy to urn-and-willow progression is well documented and can be found throughout New England. In rural areas, it tends to take on a local flavor because the few local stone cutters held onto their vernacular styles, but they did incorporate new trends.

Windham, CT:

Windham, CT was officially incorporated in 1692, and boasts a big, beautiful graveyard with lots of examples of the work of Obadiah Wheeler, the Mannings, and the Collins workshop. Like the burying ground in Brooklyn, CT, the Windham cemetery is still an active burial place. 

The earliest generation of stones in this graveyard date from the 1710s and 1720s. Like the Thomas Huntington stone (right), these stones (most of them carved by Obadiah Wheeler) feature deep-cut whorls, pinwheels, and other sensual forms. If you blow up this picture of the Huntington stone, you will see not only delicate, winged soul effigy, but also a pair of eyes formed by the whorls under the lunette. Ludwig called this "visual punning."

The aesthetic of deep carving and vine-based borders lingered in Windham after it was beginning to fall away in more cosmopolitan communities. Still, the neoclassical style began to make inroads in the years after the Revolution. Notice the diagonal, striped "columns" to the left and right of the soul effigy on the James Flint stone (1788). In addition, the epitaphs of the post-war period began to reflect a pride in civic service similar to that seen in Concord. Flint's epitaph celebrates his civil virtues, but not his piety:

For 30 years, he was a reputable Merchant in Windham and always sustained the charity of an honest man and a good citizen.

By 1807, urns and willows had come to Windham. This design is not as airy or sophisticated as the Concord examples, but it is undeniably geometric and neoclassical. Local carvers have interpreted the urn-and-willow pattern and reproduced it in their own way. Part of the problem is that the low-quality stone available in Windham could not take the light carving of high-quality Massachusetts slate.

Providence, RI:
Providence was an urban area, so residents had access to a wider range of gravestone carvers. The John Stevens shop in Newport, RI supplied many high-quality stones to Providence (and still does to this day!). I've explained the stylistic progression often enough, so I'll just post these pics in order. All of theses photos are from the North Burial Ground in Providence. They were taken by Robert Emlen, curator at Brown University, and can be found at the course website that I wrote for him.

Hannah Jenkes (1718)

Freelove Angell (1788) 

Stephen Angel (1816) 

Return Waite

Return Waite, 

son of Richard and Elizabeth Waite was born in Boston on July 8, 1638.

Happy 370th birthday and many happy Returns.

Neoclassical Republicanism and New England Gravestones

Cross-posted from American Creation.

In the last decades of the eighteenth century, New England gravestones underwent a stylistic revolution that mirrored the country's political revolution. The deep, plastic, organic shapes of the 17th and early 18th centuries gave way to light, planar, geometric forms (this swing from the sensual to the cerebral can also be observed in furniture, tableware, picture frames, and many other types of material objects — a phenomenon is called “shared mental structures”). In addition to these stylistic changes, the content of gravestone decorations shifted from soul effigies, spiritual breasts, and other religious symbols to neoclassical elements such as urns, willows, columns, and laurel wreaths.

These artistic transformations reflect an evolving worldview in which classical republican ideas and aesthetics (as filtered through popular understanding of the Enlightenment) encroached on the provincial culture of New England Puritanism. While Americans’ interest in the ancient republics translated into an explosion of neoclassical style in popular culture (town names, architecture, people signing letters to the editor with classical names), many New Englanders were uncomfortable with the growing influence of “reason” when they thought that it might threaten their religious traditions.

New England gravestones from the period 1770-1820 illustrate ordinary people’s attempts to accommodate both neoclassical and Christian ideas into their eschatologies.

During the period 1690-1770, New England gravestones were typically tripartite slabs decorated with symbols and bearing short, factual epitaphs. While there was considerable variation and development in gravestone art during this period, most stones (particularly pre-1750) featured natural images (such as vines, breasts, flowers, and hourglasses) that had theological significance. For example, the breasts visible on many 17th-century represent the Scriptures, which provided “divine milk” to nourish the soul. As Edward Taylor (1642-1729) wrote,

Lord put these nibbles then my mouth into
And suckle me therewith I humbly pray,
Then with this milk thy Spiritual Babe I'st grow,
And these two milke pails shall themselves display
Like to these pritty twins in pairs round neate
And shall sing forth thy praise over this meate.

If you think that’s a little weird, don’t read anything written by 17th-century Franciscans.

Epitaphs from the pre-1770 period typically focus on the physical presence of the body and often begin with “Here lies buried . . .” or “Here lyes the Body of . . . ” or “Here lies the mortal part of . . .” The earlier the stone, the less likely it is that it will have any epitaph beyond the deceased person’s name, date of death, and age (women also often have their husbands’ names and ministers were more likely to have more elaborate epitaphs). When ordinary people do have a verse after their biographical information, it is usually a one-liner such as, “Ye memory of ye just is blessed,” or “Blessed are ye Dead who die in ye Lord.” The religious beliefs of the community are conveyed through images and placement (stones often face East so that the dead can sit upright at the last trumpet), rather than through words.

After 1770, the images on New England gravestones underwent a profound stylistic shift. Instead of the undulating leaves, death’s heads, and winged soul effigies that adorn earlier stones, gravestones of the late 18th century are typically decorated with columns, urns, and weeping willows. It is very rare to find a stone from the 1800-1820 period that is not ornamented with these neoclassical symbols. At the same time, gravestones began to lose their function as markers of the location of a body awaiting resurrection and came to be regarded as memorials to benefit the living. Instead of “here lies,” these epitaphs began with “Sacred to the Memory of . . .” or “Erected in Remembrance of . . .”

Yet, even as New Englanders embraced the neoclassical aesthetic, they remained skeptical of rationality’s ability to fulfill their spiritual needs. As the religious decorations disappeared, they were replaced by epitaphs that affirmed the deceased’s religious faith. Whereas earlier stones expressed the person’s hope for salvation pictorially, stones cut in the neoclassical style often have verses added to the epitaph to assure the reader that the dead, “died in hopes of salvation through his merits.”

New Englander’s ambivalence toward the Enlightenment worldview is best summarized by the gravestone of Oliver Miles of Concord, who died in 1820 at the age of 82. His stone, like many others of the period is decorated with the geometric columns, urns, and subtly incised borders that characterize the neoclassical style. Despite this aesthetic choice, his epitaph reads:

Can reason’s dictates be obey’d?
So weak alas! Her strongest aid;
O let religion then be nigh,
Her consolations never die.

Epitaphs also illuminate the tension between republican ideology and traditional New England Congregationalism’s idea of what constituted a life well lived. The ideal republican citizen was judged by his good works in service to the polity, while Congregational theology abhorred any “doctrine of works.” (I don't mean to say that neighborliness and service to the community were unimportant to earlier New Englanders, but these virtues were grounded in a specifically Christian milieu.) Famed patriots such as General Washington were not beloved because they were men of great faith, but because they were men of great deeds and “character.” The tension between these two systems of merit plays out in epitaphs during the Early Republican period. While the rare pre-1750 epitaph that enumerated a person’s good points generally confines itself to his/her piety and sobriety, later epitaphs extol the deceased’s “usefulness,” “civic spirit,” and good works, as well as his/her faith. Such is the case on the John Cuming stone (1788) in Concord, MA:

Naturally active as to genius & disposition, he early appeared on the stage of life, where he conducted with spirit & dispatch & acquired honor in different stations. As a physician, he was, beloved, useful, & celebrated. His compassion for the distressed hastened him to their relief; & his hand was as charitable as healing to the poor; — and as a Magistrate, he magnified his office, nor held the sword of justice in vain. Constitutionally particular, animated & warm in his disposition & temper, earnestness & zeal, affection & precision were his characteristics: hence from his youth, in conversation, he was cheerful & affable; in civil business, prompt and expeditious; in private & public worship, punctual and fervent; in charity liberal; in piety devout. His learning, dignity, and donations procured him an honorary degree from Harvard College: to that society for the support of a Professor of Physic, & to the Church and Town of Concord, for public, charitable, and religious purposes, he made generous donations in his last will.
The Righteous shall be in everlasting Remembrance.

A century earlier, Cuming's donations, public service, and civic virtues may not have been as important to his position as one of the “righteous,” but they were clearly important to his community in 1788.

Some New England epitaphs from the Early Republican period focused solely on the deceased’s good citizenship, excluding any mention of religious virtue. By 1805, Thomas Hunt could be remembered as a good man and a solid citizen, even if piety was not among his memorable qualities:

Here lies the remains of
Mr. Thomas Hunt
of Concord, late of Boston
who died Jan. 8, 1805, Aetat 22
Tho’ death consigned him to an early grave, his amiable life and sprightly talents will long survive in the recollection of those who knew him. His heart was formed for friendship and society and embraced in its affections his country’s good. The millitary [sic] science was his pride, and early he became a member of a volunteer company in Boston, in which he acquited [sic] himself with honour, his energies in vindicating the injured rights of his country, were justly anticipated.

I’m sorry that all of these examples are from Concord — I just visited last week, so they’re fresh in my mind and I have pictures. For non-Concord examples of stylistic progression, please see this follow-up post.

These are just a few of the thousands of gravestones in New England, but they are representative. There’s no question that religion was important to the New Englanders of the Early Republican period, but Christian faith was no longer the only important criterion for determining the value of an individual life. After the Revolution, patriotism and civic “usefulness” offered an alternative way for people to live a good life.

Satisfaction Belcher

When your last name is Belcher, you have to be careful when selecting your child's first name. Edward and Mary Belcher decided to go with

Satisfaction Belcher.

Little Satisfaction was born in Boston on February 23, 1656/7.

Adam Eve

Today's New England name of the day is:

Adam Eve.

I don't know much about Adam Eve other than that he had a wife named Elizabeth who died in 1735 at age 78 and is buried in Watertown, MA. It's kind of tricky to Google for him.

The Bloody Shirt

I'm currently listening to the unabridged audio version of Stephen Budiansky's The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox. I'm ambivalent about it. The prologue had me all psyched up for a ripping expose of reconstruction-era violence, but the rest of the book is falling a bit flat for me.

Most of this book is made up of primary sources (letters, newspaper accounts, journals, etc.). After the prologue, Budiansky steps back, offering very little analysis of his sources. What authorial presence exists takes the form of omniscient narration. The sources are quoted at great length, often in their entirety, and are left to speak for themselves.

I found this style to be more than a little annoying. Budianskyhas found some amazingly revealing documents, but he does not provide much context, leaving the reader wondering whether these anecdotes are universal or local. In addition, Budiansky treats the Northerners who produced much of this material (Adelbert Ames, Albert Morgan, John Dennett, Lewis Merrill, etc.) as neutral observers, rather than as men who were constructing their own narratives. He basically treats them as unbiased reporters of fact, which doesn't do much to help his argument.

But what an argument it is. No one could possibly read the virulent, aggressive, racist words written and spoken by white Southerners and maintain that these were men of honor and character. The documents that Budiansky has assembled are shocking in their brazen contempt for the equality of all citizens, their horror at the idea of freedmen voting, and their hatred for due process in all its forms. These are not hints and subtle, coded messages. The shameless vitriol of the Southern newspaper writers will shock even those readers who were already acquainted with the rhetoric of the period. Budiansky ably demolishes the idea that the KKK and its allies were marginal or honorable by reproducing their indignant arguments against the stirring guarantees of the Declaration of Independence.

One criticism I expect to hear from the few neo-confederates who bother to read this book is that it paints Northerners in an all-to-heroic light. Budiansky is not attempting to take on the issue of racism or anti-equality movements in the North, but that does not mean that the North was a utopia of progressive racial harmony. Since the Northerners in this book are generally abolitionists, progressive reformers, and liberal Republicans who voluntarily traveled to the South in order to guide the process of Reconstruction, they do come out of this looking pretty good. Budiansky acknowledges that there was corruption and incompetence among the military and civilian authorities during Reconstruction, but his main Northern characters call to mind innocent, idealistic college students of the 1960s. I don't think there's anything wrong with making African-American elected officials, white Republicans (including some Southerners, such as James Longstreet), and ordinary freedmen/women the heroes of this story — in fact, I think that that is an angle that is too often undersold. Still, Budiansky's choices may make him vulnerable to attacks by those who choose to ignore his core evidence.

As much as I applaud the aim of this book, there are several things that grated on me. First, even though "colored" and "negro" were considered respectful terms in the 1870s, that doesn't mean that it is appropriate for historians to use them without quotation marks. Second, Budiansky never met a dramatic rhetorical flourish he didn't like. Third, see above complaint about his not being critical of the sources he presents. Fourth, the chapter breaks often seem random. Fifth (audiobook specific complaint), the narrator does voices for all of the different authors, and some of them make me a little uncomfortable because they sound like something out of Song of the South. I think that this is an important piece of work, but I think it might have been better in documentary movie form than in book form.

I disagree with William Grimes of the New York Times, who thinks that the myth of the oppressed South "surely expired a generation ago." It's probably true that academics no longer ascribe to a narrative of Yankee tyranny, but this book is not written for academics. The old idea that white Southerners were a noble people who were outrageously abused and harassed during reconstruction still thrives in the public imagination, and the value of Budiansky's work lies in its relentless presentation of an alternative narrative in which freedmen and their Republican allies are the true heroes of Reconstruction.

Dickery Carwithen

Today's unusual Puritan name:

Dickery Carwithen.

Carwithen's occupation is listed in the Boston records as "shipmaster." He died in Boston on September 6, 1653. There may have been an epidemic on his ship because a Richard Walters, "a mate of Dickory Carwithy" died on August 3rd.

Fireworks

The best part about tonight's fireworks on the Charles was that the official soundtrack included the music from the opening titles of the John Adams miniseries.

Either that or the little kid behind me yelling, "Take that, British!" during the finale.

No More Kings

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Sibling Names

I've been having fun with these Puritan names, but the truth is that most seventeenth-century Bostonians had relentlessly boring names. For every Hopestill or Freelove, there are a hundred Johns and Marys.

Then as now, some families favored unusual names while most stuck to the basics.

Some, like Richard and Grace Gridley, gave their children unusual grace names:

Beleeve (b. 1640)

Tremble (b. 1642)

Return (m. John Davis 1656)

Edward Bendall and his two wives, Anne and Marah, followed a similar pattern:

Free Grace (b. 1636)

Reforme (b. 1638)

Hopefor (b. 1641)

Restore (b. 1649)

Others, like Philemon and Susan Pormort, plumbed the Bible's unexplored depths:

Pedajah (b. 1640)

Borshua (b. 1647)

These patterns throw a wrench into using Puritan names as proxies for religious beliefs. To some extent, the presence of Old Testament names indicates that Puritan New Englanders may have imagined themselves as a new Israel. On the other hand, these names can be partially attributed to individual eccentricity. It's even possible that these quirky naming patterns could be used as evidence for individualism in what is generally thought to be a corporate society.

Compulsory Reading

If you were ever that crazy kid who aways had a book tucked in a pocket wherever you went, you must read "Compulsory Reading" by Alison Bechdel over at Dykes to Watch Out For. 

To prove my bona fides as a compulsive reader, I offer this photo of myself at age 6. My family was camping on the coast of Maine, and yes, I am wearing my bathing suit and reading the "Childhoods of Famous Americans" biography of Molly Pitcher. My siblings are probably off swimming somewhere. 

I did get glasses at some point.

Pixar's Gender Problem, 2nd Ed.

I'm bumping this to the first page, since it is by far my most popular post ever. Thanks, Mr. J @ Feministe! Make sure to read the updates at the bottom.

This post has very little to do with history, so feel free to skip it if that's what you come here for.

Pete and I went to see WALL-E last night. It's no Finding Nemo, but it is pretty good and excellent in parts. I'd recommend seeing it for the gorgeous end credits sequence alone.

Whenever a new Pixar movie comes out, I wrestle with the same frustration: Pixar's gender problem. While Disney's long history of antipathy toward mothers and the problematic popularity of the Disney Princess line are well-traveled territory for feminist critiques, Pixar's gender problem often slips under the radar.

The Pixar M.O. is (somewhat) subtler than the old your-stepmom-is-a-witch tropes of Disney past. Instead, Pixar's continued failure to posit female characters as the central protagonists in their stories contributes to the idea that male is neutral and female is particular. This is not to say that Pixar does not write female characters. What I am taking issue with is the ad-nauseam repetition of female characters as helpers, love interests, and moral compasses to the male characters whose problems, feelings, and desires drive the narratives.

Let us run down the current and upcoming Pixar films:

Toy Story: This buddy movie revolves around the rivalry/friendship between two male characters, Woody and Buzz. Female characters: Andy's Mom, Bo Peep, Mrs. Potato Head, Sid's sister Hannah, Baby Molly (we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here).
Grrl Power score: 0/10. The women in this story are almost entirely irrelevant.

A Bug's Life: This adventure story concerns the efforts of a male ant (Flik) who sets out on an adventure to save the colony from the wrath of a grasshopper gang. Interestingly enough, real male ants do nothing but eat and fertilize eggs, so Pixar had to go out on a limb to make this character male. Female characters: Dot, Princess Atta, The Queen, Gypsy, Rosie.
Gender Equity score: 1/10. This film gets points for having more than three female characters (out of a main cast of 17). Unfortunately, I had to deduct points for the writers' going out of their way to turn a female-dominated community into a male-dominated movie. To what end?

Toy Story 2: More Woody and Buzz. But now we have Jessie! Jessie is awesome and we love her. Too bad the story is still about Woody's existential crisis. Female characters: Jessie, minor toys (Tour Guide Barbie, Mrs. Potato Head, etc.), Andy's Mom.
Girls Rock score: 3/10. Jessie scores three points all by herself for being present, having a personality, and kicking ass. But the movie isn't about her.

Monsters, Inc.: Another buddy movie about two dudes, Mike and Sully. Female characters: Boo, Celia, Roz.
Feminist Statement score: 1/10. Boo is adorable and Roz turns out to be Agent 001 of the CDC. But seriously, what little kid loves to play with her Roz action figure?

Finding Nemo: Father/son bonding film featuring a male clownfish (Marlin) and his son (Nemo). I'm all for movies about fathers and sons and, in fact, this is my favorite of all Pixar movies. Still, Nemo doesn't put female characters front and center, and it probably shouldn't, considering the subject matter. If it were only one male-dominated movie in a well-balanced oeuvre, I wouldn't have a problem. Female characters: Nemo's dead mom (Coral), Dory, Peach, Deb, Darla.
Ally score: 2/10. Points for having an important female character. Not too many, though, since she is squarely in the selfless helper/moral center role. Should I give points for making 2 of the 8 fish in Nemo's tank female? Should I just be happy that any are female and not quibble on the 25% issue? Also, the elementary school teacher fish is male. Maybe because he's a science teacher.

The Incredibles: The story of Bob Parr's midlife crisis and how his family deals with it. Perhaps that's a little unfair — the whole family has problems that they work through in this film. Still, Bob's story drives the action. It's called The Incredibles, not Elastigirl Saves Your Whiny Ass. Female characters: Elastigirl/Helen, Violet, Mirage, Edna, Frozone's wife's disembodied voice.
Womanpower score: 5/10. Helen is a developed character with feelings and motivations. That gets us halfway there, even though almost all of the other superheroes are male (for no good reason).

Cars: Douchebag hotshot (male) racecar Lightning McQueen reenacts Doc Hollywood. I hated this movie. Female characters: Sally Carrera, Flo, Lizzie.
Girls Are Not Just Objects of Male Desire score: 0/10. Honestly, Wikipedia lists 15 residents of Radiator Springs. Three are female. Also, girls can't be on Lightning's pit crew, but they can be his silly, preening fans. Ye Gods.

Ratatouille: Male rat (Remy) dreams of becoming chef and achieves his goal even though movie sidetracks to cover ludicrous and unnecessary romance between humans part way through. This is the kind of shit that bothers me: Why is it important that the rat have a penis? Couldn't Remy have been written for a female lead? Why not? Collette's right — the restaurant business is tough for women, especially when even the fictional rat-as-chef barrier can only be broken by a male character. Female characters: Colette, that old lady with the gun, um . . . maybe some patrons?
More than a Token score: 1/10. ZOMG, we have one female character. We'd better make her fall inexplicably in love with the bumbling Linguini, stat!

WALL-E: Robot somehow acquires human gender characteristics, strives to clean up earth, goes on adventure to space. Why does WALL-E need to be male? Why does EVE need to be female? Couldn't they both be gender ambiguous and still fall in love? That would have been a bold move, but I think it's safe to say that Pixar is less than bold on the gender front. "Hey, guys, we have this robot with no inherent gender identity. We want to give it an arbitrary gender. Maybe we could make it female. Yeah, no, that would just just be ridiculous." Female characters: EVE, Mary, maybe some of the dead ex-captains of the Axiom
Challenging Gender Stereotypes score: 2/10. EVE is the competent scientist-bot. Still, making something that is inherently genderless male because male=neutral is bullshit.*

Up: This upcoming buddy movie features an elderly man named Carl and his young friend Russell who travel the world together in search of adventure. I don't know much about this film since it won't be released until 2009. What I do know: it's a buddy movie about two guys. See: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., above. Female characters: IMDb lists five actors for this movie. All of them are fellas.
Are There Any Girls in This Movie? score: can't tell yet, but it's not looking good.

Toy Story 3: see Toy Story, Toy Story 2
Will Jessie Be There? score: dunno


newt: So, we have this movie about the two last blue-footed newts on earth. Scientists want to breed them, but the two can't stand one another. The newts' names are Newt and Brooke. What should we call the movie? Let's call it "newt." Yeah. Brooke's a dumb name.
Female=Normal score: not promising. There are few better ways to tell kids that male=normal and female=weird than to make sure that your male character has the same name as his species and your female character doesn't.

The Bear and the Bow: OOOOOH! Somebody told Pixar that they needed to make a movie with a girl as the main character! So, duh, it's going to be "Pixar's first fairy tale"!!! The main character will be, get this, a PRINCESS! Sweet Flying Spaghetti Monster on a stick. But, since the Pixar people are probably good Bay Area liberals, I'm sure the princess will want to defy her parents'/society's expectations. Where have we seen that before, I wonder? No cookies for rehashing the same old shit. If we're super lucky, she won't marry the prince, which will allow us to cover the same ground that Robert Munsch and Free to Be You and Me covered in the goddamn '70s. Maybe it will be good, but no matter how good it is, it still PISSES ME OFF that girls get to be main characters only when they are princess (or marrying up the social ladder a la Belle and Mulan) in fairy tale worlds. Boys can be main characters anywhere, but if a girl is the main character, you can bet your ass it's a fantasy world. (Side note, as of 6/28/2008, the Wikipedia entry for this movie's premise begins, "In mythical Scotland . . ." Damn. I wanted to go to Scotland next summer.)
Please Don't Be Awful score: unknown, though the girl=fairy tale princess thing means they've got to work their way up from below zero in my book.

What can little girls and the women who love them conclude from surveying Pixar's body of work? Most obviously, it's that girls are particular while boys are general. I suppose this might have something to do with Pixar wanting lots of people to see their movies and fearing that girls will see boy movies but boys won't see girl movies. I heard a lot of that sort of "wisdom" from librarians when I was an elementary school teacher, but I'll tell you now — I read Little House in the Big Woods and Matilda to my second grade class and they ate it up.

I suppose what makes me so mad is not that Pixar makes movies about male characters but that they seem to go out of their way to make sure that this remains the case. This isn't just a problem with their story choices, though they are a little heavy on the buddy film/father-and-son plots. On several occasions (A Bug's Life, WALL-E), they have defied logic in order to make sure that the protagonist of their tale was male. When good female characters are part of the story (Elastigirl/Helen Parr, Jessie), they still focus on the male character's plotline and development. They make infuriating choices (female main character = princess in fairy tale). It's not just the stories they choose to tell, it's how they choose to tell them: in a way that always relegates female characters to the periphery, where they can serve and encourage male characters, but are never, ever important enough to carry a whole movie on their own shoulders. Unless they're, you know, princesses.

/rant

UPDATE: After publishing my own rant, I found a few similar observations. None of them has angry Jessie, though.

*UPDATE 2:
I just returned from seeing WALL-E with my 12-year-old sister, and I'd like to revise my comments on it somewhat. The first time, I just watched for enjoyment, but this time, I tried very hard to identify the cues and actions that marked WALL-E's and EVE's genders and see if I could imagine them as gender neutral. In truth, it wasn't too hard. Up until the scene when they introduce themselves by name, it was pretty easy to imagine each of them as either the opposite gender or gender-neutral.

There are only a few things that specifically gender WALL-E as male: his name, a single comment from John ("I know that guy."), and his copying of the male part of the "Hello Dolly" dances. His voice could be interpreted as masculine, but I forced myself to think "gender neutral" and it actually worked pretty well. With just a few tweaks, particularly the name, I think that WALL-E could have been portrayed without specifying a gender. Of course, there are some visual gender cues, such as his dirty, rusty exterior, lunchbox, and waste management job, but those things only read as masculine because of our tendency to think of the American "working class" as male. If the other aspects of this character were made ambiguous, I could argue that any gendering of WALL-E is totally on the audience, not the filmmaker.

EVE was trickier. Her voice and name are much more strongly female than WALL-E's are male. Then there's her creepy robo-womb. Still, until she uttered her first words, I was fairly successful at thinking of EVE as ungendered. Change the name, pitch the voice lower and with a little less giggling, and you've got a genderless robot.

I tried to keep an eye on the other characters too, and was pleased to find that many of them are actually not gender-specific. The cockroach, MO, Gopher, and the rogue robots are all neutral. And they still have personality (at least, MO and the cockroach do), which proves to me that it is possible to have an anthropomorphized object or animal that does not have a clear-cut gender.

With all this in mind, I want to bump WALL-E's rating to a 7/10. Not a perfect 10, since we can't get around the fact that WALL-E and EVE are given very clear genders and I stand by my earlier call of bullshit. But I want to give credit for having lots of gender-neutral characters and for making the two main characters so close to neutral. The points off are for not taking it all the way. And for having only one female captain among 5 or 6.

If you haven't seen WALL-E yet, I recommend trying to think of the characters as gender-neutral as much as possible — it was a great thought exercise and helped me reflect on how much gender the filmmakers gave to each character and how much I was putting on them by using the visual cues etc. as shortcuts.

The Coolidge/Coollidge/Coollidg/Cooldige Family of Watertown, MA

Here's some more evidence that gravestone carvers didn't spend too much time worrying about spelling family names consistently. In some ways, it's more surprising to see these inconsistencies in Watertown, MA than in Pomfret, CT because the Watertown carvers were professional, full-time carvers in the Boston market, rather than part-time carvers and masons. According to the plaque on the graveyard fence, these Coolidges are the ancestors of President Calvin Coolidge. Interestingly enough, "Coolidge" among the least common of the four spellings that appear on the Watertown stones. "Coollidge" is a much more common spelling, as seen on the Thomas Coollidge stone (1737). One stone, the Mary Coolidg stone (1700), spells the family name two different ways in the same epitaph:

In some cases, the spelling changes the pronunciation of the name, as on the Priscilla Cooldige stone (1717):

Dermin and Deiner Maboone

Generally, when I come across a novel seventeenth-century name, I can identify its origin by searching the list of Biblical names (including sound-alikes) or searching the index of Boston surnames. But sometimes, I am completely stumped. That is the case with

Dermin and Deiner Maboone.

Dermin and Deiner were a married couple who had a daughter named Honour in Boston in 1648. I have no idea where these names came from. Are they non-Anglophone names? Are they misspellings? Perhaps Deiner is really Dinah or Dana. But Dermin? No clue. When I type it into Google, I get the Urban Dictionary definition: a contraction of "dog" and "vermin" referring to the little dogs that rich people carry in purses. It also appears to be a town in Germany. Are these clumsy Anglicizations of German names? This name is also recorded as "Dorman Maboon" when Mr. Maboone died in 1661. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

Literacy in Concord, MA

Concord, MA is known for its illustrious literary history. But what can gravestones tell us about literacy in Concord in the 17th and 18th centuries? Because it is so close to Boston, Concord's burying grounds boast a large number of professionally carved gravestones. The quality of these stones is generally very high, and they rarely exhibit the creative spelling and awkward line breaks often found in rural cemeteries.

But these gravestones do occasionally contain misspellings that shed light on the limits of literacy in Concord (at least among stone carvers). The John and Anna Howard stone (1718) in the South Quarter Burying Place is somewhat crudely carved (both the lunette design and the letters are amateur) and contains the interesting misspelling "wife fo." It is unlikely that a literate person would misspell the word "of." It's even stranger that no one gouged out the mistake and amended it. Perhaps the carver was copying an epitaph written by a more talented artisan and most of the people who saw the stone couldn't read it well enough to correct him.

The Mary Meriam stone (1731) at Old Burial Hill has two interesting mistakes: the misspelling of "relict" as "reliks" and the division of the word "anno" into "an" and "no." The former mistake is unique to this stone, but the latter appears on several other stones by the same carver. This suggests that the carver may have been literate in English but did not recognize Latin. When presented with a Latin word, he transformed it into English homophones.


Another curious misspelling can be found on the Joseph Hubburd stone (1768): "Here lies Burred . . ." This is a strange mistake, especially since any gravestone carver must have carved the word "buried" hundreds of times. Perhaps this is just a mistake — the carver's mind wandered and the "r" looked enough like an "i" that his eye just skipped over it. Then again, perhaps the misspelling reflects a regional pronunciation (like the "depated" stones).


I'm also going to assume that this person's name was "Humphrey Barret," and not "Humprey Barret." 

UPDATE: Cranky Yankee's comment made me reflect on this a bit, so I want to make it clear that I'm not arguing that phonetic spelling is evidence of a lack of literacy. The most educated men and women in America often spelled as the spirit moved them until the end of the 18th century (and beyond). Rather, I'm saying that some of these mistakes ("fo") hint at a low level of literacy while others ("an no") merely reflect a lack of familiarity with Latin.

Update:

Thanks to commenter RJO for supplying some details about the carver of this stone: John Worster. 

I'm posting a photo of the John Meriam stone (1724) for a couple of reasons. First, Worster (or a letterer in his shop) misspelled the month ("Feruary"). I also think that it supplies evidence that the letterer thought that "AN" and "NO" were separate words. It looks like he likes to put big spaces between words when he needs to take up room, rather than splitting words into syllables (see lines 1, 4, 8, and 9). 

The space between AN and NO might be a spacing issue rather than a Latin issue. I'm not sure I'm right, but I think I can make a good case for the latter.

Posthumus Ditchfield

There's a chance that

Posthumus Ditchfield

is a designation rather than a name. Sometimes, birth records will say "Stillborn" where a first name would usually appear and it is possible that "Posthumus" might appear in place of an as yet unnamed posthumous baby's given name. However, I have never seen a live birth recorded without giving the baby's name. I think that Posthumus Ditchfield, son of Thomas and Anne Ditchfield (b. August, 1645 in Boston), may have been his real name — an unusual, but not a unique name.

"Tho' He Lived in a Land of Liberty, He Lived a Slave"

I was in Concord on Monday and visited the famous John Jack stone on Old Burial Hill. This is one of the most visited, most quoted African-American gravestones in New England (it is a replica of the original stone).

According to Joanne Braxton and Maria Diedrich in Monuments of the Black Atlantic, John Jack was once owned by Benjamin Barron of Concord. He bought his freedom and a small farm in 1761. Jack's wonderful epitaph was written by Daniel Bliss, a noted Tory and abolitionist who was forced to flee Massachusetts during the Revolution. John Jack's epitaph reads:

God wills us free, man wills us slaves.

I will as God wills Gods will be done.

Here lies the body of

JOHN JACK,

A native of Africa who died

March 1773. aged about 60 years

Tho' born in a land of slavery,

He was born free.

Tho' he lived in a land of liberty,

He lived a slave,

Till by his honest, tho' stolen labors,

He acquired the source of slavery,

Which gave him his freedom;

Tho' not long before

Death the grand tyrant,

Gave him his final emancipation,

And set him on a footing with kings.

Tho' a slave to vice,

He practised those virtues

Without which kings are but slaves.

Rich-Grace Simons

There is no indication in the First Church baptismal records whether

Rich-Grace Simons

was a boy or a girl. Either way, Henry Simons of South Hampton brought his 3-day-old child to Boston to be baptized on April 21, 1644.