Mission Statement

In this course students examine different forms of material culture as primary documents for the study of American cultural history. This semester we will study American gravemarkers and burying grounds dating from 1650 to the present. Emphasis will be placed on learning to interpret artifacts as historical evidence through first-hand experience supported by research in secondary sources. The principal focus will be on local resources and will include field trips to Providence burying grounds and cemeteries, to the John Stevens Shop in Newport, and to the Museum of the Rhode Island School of Design. In the first part of the course the class will use New England gravestones from the colonial and early national periods to examine and interpret the life of Puritan America. In the second part of the course we will examine the development of rural cemeteries . The third part of the course will address gravemarkers and burying grounds from various cultural traditions in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. The course culminates with an original research project and final paper.