Memory and Materiality: Marble Funerary Monuments in Nineteenth Century America
sunday, March 15, 2026
2 p.m.
online
An illustrated lecture by Dr. Elise Ciregna
From the late eighteenth century onward, white marble replaced slate and brownstone as a preferred monument material in New England cemeteries, reflecting changing tastes shaped by the rural cemetery movement and evolving attitudes toward death and memory. This lecture examines the artistic and cultural significance of these monuments, situating Grove Street Cemetery within broader regional and national trends.
Dr. Elise Madeleine Ciregna is a historian specializing in social, visual, and material culture. She was Curator of Historical Collections at Boston’s historic Forest Hills Cemetery. Elise is a former president of the Association for Gravestone Studies and was editor of their scholarly journal Markers. She has taught at many institutions on gravestones and the cemetery industry including in Canada, England, and Scotland. She is an administrative director and instructor at Harvard University, where she manages to slip the occasional gravestone-related reading assignment to her students.