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Source Description
Mount Auburn Cemetery was consecrated in 1831 and is situated in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Designed by Henry Dearborn with assistance from Alexander Wadsworth, Mount Auburn is celebrated as the first landscaped rural cemetery in the United States. Winding paths hug the cemetery’s natural hills and valleys, while dramatic plantings of shrubs and weeping trees—particularly the willow—were intended to encourage pensive strolls among dramatic arches, urns, “ruins,” decorative ponds, tombs, and burial plots. Later in the century, park advocates would point to these bucolic cemeteries to highlight the inadequacies of small urban parks, prompting the development of large, public open spaces within city limits.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
x059cc34p
label
Plan of the cemetery of Mount Auburn
core
obj
dtoType
map
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
x059cc34p
contentType
map
stage
normalized
title
Plan of the cemetery of Mount Auburn
description
Mount Auburn Cemetery was consecrated in 1831 and is situated in Watertown and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Designed by Henry Dearborn with assistance from Alexander Wadsworth, Mount Auburn is celebrated as the first landscaped rural cemetery in the United States. Winding paths hug the cemetery’s natural hills and valleys, while dramatic plantings of shrubs and weeping trees—particularly the willow—were intended to encourage pensive strolls among dramatic arches, urns, “ruins,” decorative ponds, tombs, and burial plots. Later in the century, park advocates would point to these bucolic cemeteries to highlight the inadequacies of small urban parks, prompting the development of large, public open spaces within city limits.
date
["1841"]
year
1841
rights
No known copyright restrictions.
rightsUri
No known restrictions on use.
reuseAllowed
no restrictions
language
English
identifierLocal
06_01_005498
creators
Wadsworth, Alexander, 1806-1898
institution
Boston Public Library
collections
Urban Maps
Boston and New England Maps
Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Collection
subjects
Mount Auburn Cemetery (Watertown and Cambridge, Mass.)--Maps
Cemeteries--Massachusetts--Cambridge--Maps
Cemeteries--Massachusetts--Watertown--Maps
Watertown (Mass.)--Maps
Cambridge (Mass.)--Maps
subjectsGeographic
Cambridge
Massachusetts
Middlesex (county)
Mount Auburn Cemetery
North and Central America
United States
Watertown
genreBasic
Maps
typeOfResource
Cartographic
country
United States
state
Massachusetts
county
Middlesex
city
Cambridge
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
pageCount
1
source
import
pubPlace
Boston
publisher
[s.n.]
Source extras
institutionArkId
sf268508b
collectionArkId
9s1621613
schema:latitude
42.3667
schema:longitude
-71.1
extent
1 map ; 52 x 65 cm.
notes
Relief shown by hachures.
Shows paths and plots.
Includes two inset views.
hasTranscription
no
dcId
x059cc34p
type
map
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
e03bf572c13f1531