Grave Markers Research Articles

Transformations in San Diego County Gravestones and Cemeteries

San Diego County, California, USA, is home to more than 100 cemeteries and nearly 300,000 individually marked graves. Analysis of the region’s cemeteries and grave markers by members of the San Diego County Gravestone Project has pinpointed significant patterns in commemoration strategies, evident through temporal, spatial, and formal trends. The material expressions of death seen in southern California graveyards reflect changing mortuary attitudes and parallel other diachronic cultural phenomena of modern American society during the 19th and 20th centuries. In offering an overview of every San Diego County cemetery, this work develops a classification for the region’s graveyards. It also uses spatially controlled stylistic evolutions to pinpoint different degrees of regularity in gravestone change. These trends reveal attenuation in the communication and spread of ideas regarding mortality from urban areas to more rural settings in San Diego County.

Geophysical Surveys at the West End Cemetery, Townsville: An Application of Three Techniques

Geophysical surveys were undertaken at Townsville’s West End Cemetery to examine the cultural and/or ethnic association of graves and to test the potential use of different forms of geophysical prospection on archaeological sites in north Queensland environments. Surveys focused on an area of the cemetery known as ‘E Block’, which contained little physical or historical evidence for burials but was believed to have been used for the interment of ‘non-Christian’ individuals. While results from the resistivity and ground penetrating radar surveys were inconclusive, the magnetometry surveys located the graves of 65 individuals. Details on each individual’s cultural attributes derived from the cemetery’s burial register indicated that they were from a diverse range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, many of which were previously unrepresented amongst extant grave markers. Results provided information that could not be gained from any other source, and enabled the critical examination of aspects of the cemetery including the past management regime, the spatial patterning of graves and whether or not an individual’s ethnic, social or economic characteristics contributed to their spatial placement.

The Gravestone Index: Tracking Personal Religiosity Across Nations, Regions, and Periods

Given shortcomings in traditional methods of gauging levels of religious sentiment in national or local communities—affiliation with a congregation, church attendance, responses to opinion polls—this exploratory article proposes a novel, arguably more sensitive measure of personal religiosity, the Gravestone Index; that is, the incidence of religious symbols, iconography, or text on permanent memorials. Its application to 58,490 grave markers observed in 111 community, or nondenominational, cemeteries in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain yielded substantial findings, some expected but others violently at odds with the conventional wisdom. Seemingly reflecting the secularization of society, the Gravestone Index declines throughout the early twentieth century but, contrariwise, has rebounded strongly since the 1960s, indicating some sort of ongoing religious revival in all three lands. However, it fails to show any of the anticipated regional variation within the United States, notably that between South and non‐South. Even more surprisingly, it records a level of British and Canadian religiosity persistently far above the U.S. value.

Woodland burial: Memorial arboretum versus natural native woodland?

This study explores the case of natural burial and the motives for the adoption of trees as memorial objects to replace traditional grave markers. It specifically explores a single woodland burial ground and two distinct communities who are connected to the site; bereaved people and pre-purchase holders. Natural burial has developed in response to changing ideals, values, and shifts in attitude towards death in contemporary Britain. Examination of memorial tree selection and the emotions expressed about the chosen plant suggests that the adoption of trees as grave markers is the result of the symbolic and sensory qualities that they offer as objects of memory and their perceived natural qualities and environmental benefit. This study demonstrates the value placed on trees for their perceived permanence and presence and the way in which they may embody aspects of personal and cultural memory, thereby facilitating and sustaining relationships beyond the grave. It also explores the motivations for choosing natural burial and the significance of the memorial tree and its connection with the grave.

The Hybrid Total Arch Repair: Brachiocephalic Bypass and Concomitant Endovascular Aortic Arch Stent Graft Placement

Repair of aortic arch aneurysm is technically demanding, requiring complex circulatory management. Very large atherosclerotic saccular aneurysms of the arch are grave markers of extensive arch and brachiocephalic atheromatous disease and represent high surgical risks for perioperative neurologic complications. Operative morbidity and mortality may be prohibitive with traditional surgical intervention. We described our experience with a hybrid procedure for total arch repair with a brachiocephalic bypass with a trifurcated graft followed by concomitant placement of a stent graft in the arch. Since June 2005, we have performed the hybrid total arch repair in eight patients. A retrospective review was performed to evaluate the new technique. The mean age of the patients was 67 years with a mean aneurysm size of 8 cm (range, 4.4 to 10 cm). Significant comorbidities included carotid stenosis, chronic renal insufficiency, peripheral vascular disease, hypertension, and coronary artery disease. Two patients had previous Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repairs. Three patients had previous sternotomy for type A dissection, ascending aortic aneurysm repair, and coronary artery bypass grafting. Transesophageal echocardiogram demonstrated grade IV or V atheromatous disease in the arch and ascending aorta. Stent grafts were deployed antegrade directly into the ascending aorta in three patients and retrograde from the femoral artery in five patients. Technical success with complete aneurysmal exclusion was achieved in all patients (100%). At a mean follow-up period of 11.7 months, there was no incidence of endoleak. There was one death resulting from a perioperative myocardial infarction (first patient). Documented perioperative neurologic events (stroke) occurred in two patients, with both patients demonstrating no residual deficit at the time of discharge. Saccular arch aneurysms can be technically treated by total arch repair with brachiocephalic bypass and concomitant aortic arch stent graft placement. Hybrid arch repair provides an alternative to patients otherwise considered prohibitively high risk for traditional open arch repair.

Reminiscences of Plains Archaeology, Pre- and Post-World War II

In my three early field seasons in the Plains, I had worked only in Nebraska. The summer of 1939 was with Carlyle Shreve Smith, the summer of 1940 was with Robert Cumming, Jr., and in 19411 worked under Marvin (Gus) C. Kivett (Figures 1 and 2). I returned to the Plains for a season 11 years later in 1952, this time under the auspices of the Smithsonian's River Basin Surveys Program. My introduction to Plains archaeology was foreordained through my Long Island friend Carlyle Smith. He was a student of William Duncan Strong, whose An Introduction to Nebraska Ar chaeology became the bible of pre-World War II Plains archaeologists. After World War II, when I enrolled in the graduate program at Columbia Uni versity, I had the pleasure of taking Dune's North American course, which naturally dealt heavily with the Plains in enthralling detail. My first trip west in the summer of 1939 was a tremendous experience. I joined Carlyle Smith at Wauneta, Nebraska, stepping off a tired old red bus on the last leg of a non-stop trip from New York, changing vehicles on the way. Alighting from the bus early in the morning, tired and sleepy, I saw chickens dusting themselves on the street, dogs, and wide open streets. Carlyle was a wel come greeting sight. We went straight to Ash Hol low Cave on the North Platte River, where John Champe was excavating (Figure 3). This was my first cave excavation, something we did not have on Long Island, and nothing like Long Island ar chaeology. We excavated the archaeological de posits in 3-inch levels. I am not sure how the se quence of deposition was resolved because arbi trary sectioning produces headaches for the per son researching the stratigraphy and trying to as semble the cultural material. The full realization that I was out in the Real West came when we went to see the wagon wheel ruts cut into the sod on the Oregon Trail nearby. We visited the 100-year-old grave markers and Windlass Hill, where the wagons were let down into the valley. I learned that the Platte was very much unlike the Hudson. It was said to be a mile wide and a foot deep. We slept in the cave on cots in a complete silence new to me, punctuated by the nocturnal yaps of coyotes, another novelty. The most impressive thing about the Plains is the vastness of the area. It was like looking over the sea, miles of wheat fields bowing under the wind. Coming from waterbound eastern Long Is land, the Plains represented a marked contrast. One of the things that thrilled me was standing on one of the hills in Nebraska, looking downriver, and seeing the weather coming up the valley. Dark thunder clouds would come boiling up from a far distance, while there was clear blue sky above. At other times in the summer heat, there were dust devils dancing over the fields. The local farmers spoke about the dangers of tornadoes?also new to me. At a site on Davis Creek near Genoa, Ne braska, I saw my first flash flood and what it could do. The creek, steeply banked in an erosional gully, was normally a moderate slow flowing stream. Since the trees growing along the stream provided some shade and it was considerably cooler by the stream bank, we had been using niches cut into the earth bank for food storage. On this particular day we had stored a couple dozen fresh eggs and other fresh produce, which had been brought to us by one of our local farmer neighbors. While the sky was serenely blue overhead, we noted some storm clouds upstream way off in the distance with

Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender (review)

Reviewed by: Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender Lori Duin Kelly (bio) Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender by Jeannie Banks Thomas. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003, 216 pp., $39.95 hardcover, $21.95 paper. What do yard art, cemetery statues, G.I. Joes, and Barbie dolls have in common? According to Jeannie Banks Thomas, author of Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender, these items are among the most popular forms of material culture. More important, their ubiquity in the visual landscape of everyday life plays a key role in reflecting and reinforcing prevailing gender ideologies. Thomas explores the iconic meaning of items like concrete geese and G.I. Joe dolls that she characterizes as "gendered sculptural forms" (2). Her research incorporates the narratives that invariably accompany interactions with these objects. Together the objects and the narratives provide insight into the way we construct, depict, and interpret gender roles in daily life. Consistently, when describing these forms, Thomas notes a marked difference not only in the ways that males and females are presented but also in the ways such presentations are often out of synch with contemporary discourse on gender and equality. For example, in spite of technological innovations like lasers, which make individualized carvings more possible, readily available, and less expensive, depictions of men and women in cemeteries in the 20th century still hearken back to the golden age of cemetery statuary, the 19th century. Then, as now, women appear in varying degrees of undress, unlike their male counterparts, the sartorial semiotic of whose clothing—a business suit, a military uniform—invariably embeds them within the context of a life of action and aggression. In spite of the undeniable presence of women in the workforce, contemporary [End Page 235] cemeteries still assign women to a singular role, that of the mourner, a role which is rarely depicted in male statuary. Moreover, while grave markers of men often incorporate symbols of their workplace or their interest in sports that serve to individuate them, the individuation of women is not only more rare, but when it does occur is either stylized—a floral flourish, an urn—or marked with illustrations, like a grandmother hugging her grandchildren, which function to consign them exclusively to the domestic sphere. Similar gender binaries characterize yard art, a catchall phrase for decorations ranging from geese and garden gnomes to lawn jockeys and plywood cutouts depicting women's backsides. Yard art of boys, for example, depicts them as active and full of mischief. Girls, on the other hand, who often are shown wearing frilly dresses, emerge as passive and demure. If juxtaposed next to a cutout or statue of a urinating male—a familiar image in yard art iconography—the female reinforces traditional gender paradigms by appearing to grasp her face in mock horror or modestly covering her eyes. Other kinds of yard art, such as an entourage of lawn geese, communicate gender roles by incorporating semiotics of dress into the display or by positioning them within the context of traditional social, familial, or care giving roles. Surprisingly, of the items of material culture that Thomas analyzes for gender messages it's the last, Barbies, that seems to challenge and expand traditional gender boundaries. Although Barbie dolls operate within the same traditions as cemetery statues and yard art, their eroticised bodies, at least in their incarnations as veterinarians or paleontologists, expand beyond the domestic the range of spheres within which women can operate. However, the reification of agelessness, coupled with the singular appearance that characterizes the Barbie, clearly compromises her presenting any serious challenge to the prevailing gender status quo. Instead, it is in Barbie's use in play, both by children and adults, that the real interrogation of gender takes place. Adults' narratives about Barbie, as found on Internet listservs under subject lines like "Over Forty Barbies," suggest that the doll is a mechanism for thinking about women's lives, and for exploring questions of gender difference, social roles, and sexuality. Overall, Thomas's research is interesting. But in her enthusiasm for her topics, the author too often indulges a penchant for...

Buddhism and Gato Grave Markers in Ancient Kamitsuke:

Buddhism and Gato Grave Markers in Ancient Kamitsuke:

Oregon Places: "Without a Second's Warning": The Heppner Flood of 1903

Oregon Places BobDenOuden "Wit h 11 iiI a Second's Warning" TheHeppner Floodof1903 ? top a hill in the rolling wheat fields and grazing lands ofMor /-Jk row County lies theHeppner cemetery. A walk through its mani ?jl JL cured lawns and orderly clusters of grave markers reveals much about the community nestled in the narrow valley below. The cemetery's ample room for growth speaks to the town ofHeppner's confidence in its own future.Many of the names inscribed on the family plots are those of town founders and figures important to the history of the area. Numerous plots contain multiple generations of familymembers, a testament to the town's strong roots. At the bottom of the hill, meandering in a lazy arc through the small town of Heppner, flowsWillow Creek. The stream, which sometimes dries up completely by late summer, normally runs ankle deep and up to seven feetwide inmid-June. On the afternoon of June 14, 1903, however, Willow Creek was fed by a tremendous cloudburst rain storm and turned into something quite different. The Heppner Gazette reported: Without a second'swarning, a leaping, foamingwall ofwater, 40 feetinheight, struck Heppner at about 5 o'clock Sunday afternoon, sweeping everythingbefore itand leavingonly death and destruction in its wake.1 As a result, June 14,1903, is a prominent date among the rows of head stones in the cemetery. The date also appears on a three-panel stonemonu ment thatwas dedicated in 2003 tomark the hundredth anniversary of the catastrophe. The monument, which includes a panoramic image of the 108 OHQ vol. 105, no. 1 ? 2004 Oregon Historical Society QHS neg.,OrHi 24345 Floodwaters moved through Heppner, Oregon, on June 14, 1903, destroying the town. The toppledtreesin this photographindicatethe forceof the flood.The PalaceHotel, one of the few buildings not destroyed in the event, stands at the center of the image. destruction wrought by the flood and a list of the names of almost 250 people who died as a result, serves as a quiet reminder ofHeppner's day of tragedy. Heppner is located inOregon's Morrow County where Hinton Creek, Shobe Creek, and Balm Fork merge with themuch largerWillow Creek. Willow Creek flows north for approximately seventy miles from its source in the Blue Mountains to itsconfluence with theColumbia River upstream of the town of Arlington, Oregon. After leaving itsmountainous head waters, the creek enters a narrow valley whose width never exceeds three quarters of a mile ? the kind of landscape often favored by early white settlerswho wanted to ensure that their towns had a reliable water supply. DenOuden, "Without a Second's Warning" 109 Heppner, shown here in 1901,was a booming agricultural shipping center serving north central Oregon. Aside fromtheforested headwaterhighlands,thebulkof the watershed is comprised of strongly undulating, treeless prairies dissected by numerous watercourses.2 This geographic province of north-central Oregon isknown as the Deschutes-Umatilla Plateau, a semiarid region that receives fewer than twenty inches of precipitation in a year. The rains that do occur often come in the form of intense thunderstorms thatdump several inches in less than an hour.3 As early as 1858, cattlemen began foraging their herds in the abundant grasses found along the creek bottoms in the Willow Creek Valley, estab lishing cattle camps that later grew into the valley's first settlements. The 1860s gold rush inOregon's JohnDay country, to the south of Heppner, prompted further economic growth. During this time, the Willow Creek Valley served as an important transportation route from the Columbia River steamship landings to the gold strikes.4 Itwas not until 1869, how ever, that the area's first land claim was established by George W. Stansbury, who built a cabin there.5Many others soon arrived, including some Or no OHQ vol. 105, no. 1 egon Trail pioneers who had made it to the Willamette Valley but longed for the open prairies to the east of the Cascade Range. Others were gold seekers who wished to give up their prospecting lifestyles and settle down inwhat became known as Stansbury Flat.6 In 1873,Henry Heppner and Jackson L. Morrow opened the first merchandise store in town to supply thenew inhabitants who tiredofpacking...

Medieval Dobrun

Medieval Dobrun

The Neanderthal dead

Recent discussions about Neanderthal mortuary behaviour have tended to polarise around opinions that they did, or did not, bury their dead. Gargett, in particular, has forwarded a largely unconvincing critique of Neanderthal burial, but most scholars agree that at least some Neanderthals, at some times, treated the dead body. This article demonstrates that Neanderthal mortuary activity was a real phenomenon that requires exploration and interpretation and examines the nature and extent of variability in mortuary behaviour. In the later Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals may have been caching the dead in unmodified natural surroundings. After 70 ka BP some Neanderthal groups buried infants, or parts of them, in pits, infants and adults in shallow grave cuttings and indulged in primary corpse modification and subsequent burial. It may have been on occasion too that certain enclosed sites served as mortuary centres, and that their function as such was perpetuated in the memory of Neanderthal groups either through physical grave markers or social tradition. In all it would seem that at least in some Neanderthal groups the dead body was explored and treated in socially meaningful ways.

Caring for Patients’ Graves Helps Hospitals Reconcile With Living

Caring for Patients’ Graves Helps Hospitals Reconcile With Living

Grave Markers: Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic Burials and the Use of Chronotypology in Contemporary Paleolithic Research

Comparison of mortuary data from the Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic archaeological record shows that, contrary to previous assessments, there is much evidence for continuity between the two periods. This suggests that if R. H. Gargett's critique of alleged Middle Paleolithic burials is to be given credence, it should also be applied to the burials of the Early Upper Paleolithic. Evidence for continuity reinforces conclusions derived from lithic and faunal analyses and site locations that the Upper Paleolithic as a reified category masks much variation in the archaeological record and is therefore not an appropriate analytical tool. Dividing the Upper Paleolithic into Early and Late phases might be helpful for understanding the cultural and biological processes at work.

Ground Penetrating Radar Surveys to Locate 1918 Spanish Flu Victims in Permafrost

The "Spanish Flu" killed over 40 million people worldwide in 1918. Archival records helped us identify seven men who died of influenza in 1918 and were interred in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, 1,300 km from the North Pole. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used successfully, in a high-resolution field survey mode, to locate a large excavation with seven coffins, near the existing seven grave markers. The GPR indicated that the ground was disturbed to 2 m depth and was frozen below 1 m. Subsequent excavation showed that: a) the GPR located the position of the graves accurately, b) the coffins were buried less than 1 m deep, and c) that the frozen ground was 1.2 m deep where the coffins were located. The GPR assisted in planning the exhumation, safely and economically, under the high degree of containment required. Virologic and bacteriologic investigations on recovered tissues may give us an opportunity to isolate and identify the micro-organisms involved in the 1918 influenza and expand our knowledge on the pathogenesis of influenza.

Seventeenth-century Tile-tombs in Normandy—An Interim Appraisal

The subject of tile-tombs is one not often discussed in archaeological journals. From time to time amongst the quantities of tiles which are excavated, enigmatic fragments are found which can be interpreted as grave markers, in the manner of a memorial brass. Sometimes referred to as ‘tile-tombs’, the available evidence indicates that such memorials were a part of the floor, not raised above it. This factor, and also the inherent fragility of the tile-tombs themselves, has meant that only a very few such monuments have survived in any reasonable state of preservation. Owing to their scarcity they have often been denied a place within a general monumental history of the medieval period, let alone that of later times. A major exception to this is a study published in this Journal of the collection of tile-tombs once at the abbey of jumièges (Seine-Maritime), France, which have been convincingly attributed by Christopher Norton to the abbacy of Guillaume III de Rauçon (1213–39). Dr Norton places this cohesive series of tombs within the context of technical and stylistic developments of the floor-tile industry of Normandy, drawing parallels in Britain. The concentration of such tile-tombs is overwhelmingly medieval. In this paper the chronology of tile-tombs is enlarged by studying two recently noted early modern examples, also in the département of Seine-Maritime. In addition, the paper supports Dr Norton's study, in that he assesses the jumièges tile-tombs to ‘stand at the start of a tradition which was to continue in Normandy for a period of some five centuries.’

Seventeenth-century Tile-tombs in Normandy—An Interim Appraisal

The subject of tile-tombs is one not often discussed in archaeological journals. From time to time amongst the quantities of tiles which are excavated, enigmatic fragments are found which can be interpreted as grave markers, in the manner of a memorial brass. Sometimes referred to as ‘tile-tombs’, the available evidence indicates that such memorials were a part of the floor, not raised above it. This factor, and also the inherent fragility of the tile-tombs themselves, has meant that only a very few such monuments have survived in any reasonable state of preservation. Owing to their scarcity they have often been denied a place within a general monumental history of the medieval period, let alone that of later times. A major exception to this is a study published in this Journal of the collection of tile-tombs once at the abbey of jumièges (Seine-Maritime), France, which have been convincingly attributed by Christopher Norton to the abbacy of Guillaume III de Rauçon (1213–39). Dr Norton places this cohesive series of tombs within the context of technical and stylistic developments of the floor-tile industry of Normandy, drawing parallels in Britain. The concentration of such tile-tombs is overwhelmingly medieval. In this paper the chronology of tile-tombs is enlarged by studying two recently noted early modern examples, also in the département of Seine-Maritime. In addition, the paper supports Dr Norton's study, in that he assesses the jumièges tile-tombs to ‘stand at the start of a tradition which was to continue in Normandy for a period of some five centuries.’

Is there a Duty to Vote?

The genre of public service advertisements that appear with two- and four-year cyclical regularity is familiar. Cameras pan across scenes of marines hoisting the flag on Iwo Jima, a bald eagle soaring in splendid flight, rows of grave markers at Arlington. The somber-voiced announcer remonstrates: “They did their part; now you do yours.” Once again it is the season to fulfill one's civic duty, to vote.

Writing the Dead: Death and Writing Strategies in the Western Tradition (review)

250 Reviews and the political situation it is surprising just h o w untarnished is Milton's final preference for a republic, and the old argument that Satan uses republican rhetoric is countered by Norbrook's demonstration that his imagery becomes more monarchist and courtly after his initial rebellion. Marvell is assessed in more familiar ways as one interested in the phenomenon of ambiguity itself, but Norbrook's narrative approach, emphasising that his protagonists could not have fore-known the course of events, helps to explain Marvell's calculated prevarications. For him, 'the English republic is not a static, traditional entity but a project still in process. H e could not have k n o w n h o w soon it was to hit the rocks' (p. 298). H e was simply a different temperament and a different kind of poet from the strongly aligned Wither and Milton. Writing the English Republic is the most consistently pro-republican account so far written of the Commonwealth period and its place in history. Given Norbrook's formidable gifts of dense historical scholarship and finely honed linguistic and stylistic alertness, his o w n revival of parrhesia ('open, bold speech', p. 127), his book lays d o w n a vigorous challenge to those historians and critics w h o assume that 'balance' and 'objectivity' are guaranteed by maintaining conservative positions. R. S. White Department of English The University of Western Australia Petrucci, Armando, Writing the Dead: Death and Writing Strategies in th Western Tradition (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture), trans. Michael Sullivan, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998; cloth; pp. xviii, 163; 64 b / w illustrations; R.R.P. £25.00. [Distributed in Australia by Cambridge University Press.] This book, first published in Italian as Le scritture ultime: ldeologi morte e strategic dello scrivere nella tradizione occidentale (1995), is might call a coffee-table book for academics. It has an interesting subject , funerary epigraphy from Attic Greece to the present in the Western world, and an expressed objective of discovering the links between the kinds of funerary writing a society practises (or does not practise) and 251 the dominant social culture that authorises them. However, given the vast sweep of Petrucci's subject, his book, although well researched, is bound to be somewhat superficial and often partial in the material it surveys. Even so, it brings together some fascinating cultural continuities, especially between the antique world and the various moments in European, and particularly Italian, history w h e n antique funerary writing, or what was then understood to represent it, was revived and reinterpreted. Petrucci is a professor of Latin palaeography, so this book is not surprisingly strongest on continuities and differences across the centuries in kinds of writing using Latin or its vernacular derivatives on funerary monuments and in the written literature of death. O n e of the central questions in the book is about w h o in any society has 'a right to a written death'. Most of the answers, given the book's scope and length (only 164 pages), are predictable enough, and do not probe very far below the surface of the individual societies surveyed. By far the richest evidence is amassed in pursuit of Petrucci's central question posed of the antique world and medieval and modern funerary epigraphy in Italy. Although he includes some discussion of other parts of Europe (principally France, Germany and England), it is small in comparison with the space devoted to Italy. Towards the end of the volume there is an interesting chapter on funerary writing in colonial America. The final chapter is a bit of a squib, necessarily so as the author documents and explains the twentieth-century decline in funerary epigraphy, concluding with a rather limp hope that it m a y revive somehow. Behind Petrucci's history of writing the dead there seems to lie the unquestioned assumption that written grave markers or memorials, on which the verbal text is both clear and central, are superior to those on which other kinds of signs and icons dominate. This is an arguable position , but I would have preferred to have the author present evidence for i t . As...

Inventing the Loyalists: the Ontario Loyalist tradition and the creation of usable pasts

Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of Usable Pasts. Norman Knowles. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.The primary aim of the University of Toronto Press's Ontario Historical Studies Series (1971-1993) was to describe and analyse the historical development of Ontario as a distinct region within Canada. This was necessary, it was argued, because for many years the main theme in English-Canadian historiography was the emergence of the Canadian nation. Ontario's role in the country's development precluded it from being perceived as a region. Contributor Paul Craven claimed, Almost unconsciously, historians equated the role of the province with that of the nation and often depicted the interests of other regions as obstacles to the unity and welfare of Canada (vii).The series also hoped to encourage historians not directly involved in the project to turn their attention to the province. Judging by the books reviewed here, its directors succeeded as writers continue to be interested in Ontario's past. While several aspects of the province are studied, however, in the works reviewed the extent to which the authors convey a sense of a distinct province varies from book to book.In Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change, geograpner Thomas McIlwraith examines vernacular features of southern Ontario's built environment and the social meanings they convey. The result is a highly readable and well-illustrated book with chapters on surveying building materials, houses, barns, fences, grave markers and many other seemingly mundane topics. As McIlwraith points out, it is regrettable that the ordinary is often taken for granted because routine features of the human environment provide insights into the way in which people interacted with their environment. It will be difficult for anyone who reads this book to look at roads, mills, houses, etc., without trying to determine when they were constructed, by whom and for purposes.Choosing sections of McIlwraith's book to highlight in a review is not easy, because most of them are worth mentioning. One chapter, for example, provides a good account of surveying techniques and the problems associated with the profession in the province's early years.(f.1) McIlwraith adds a human dimension by observing that place names reflect what successive administrators deemed to be meaningful in their (65). There is a useful map and a table tracing the types of place names these officials used. In his chapter on building materials, McIlwraith points out some of Ontario's particularities. In 1931, for example, 27 per cent of the buildings in the province were made of brick, compared with six per cent for Quebec and between one and two per cent for the rest of Canada.(f.2)McIlwraith's ideological position is not explicit but it is clear that his sympathies are with those whose lives and accomplishments usually go unmentioned. In his discussion of grave markers, for example, McIlwraith notes that extant markers identify a biased sample of Ontarians (230) because paupers and those less well-off (half the population, he estimates) could not afford stone monuments. He sheds new light on well-known aspects of the province's past, such as the obsession with property; on some nineteenth-century grave markers, the deceased are identified not only by name but also by the lot and concession number of their holdings.One criticism of Looking for Old Ontario is that McIlwraith attempts to do too much in a single volume. There is no doubt that McIlwraith is enthusiastic about his subject but his descriptions are too brief at times. His chapter on transportation, for example, is not as strong as it should be, largely because of lack of detail about railways, canals, ports, lighthouses and so on.In his conclusion, McIlwraith hopes that readers have been visualizing their own examples of he described and in this he succeeds. …

Looking for old Ontario: two centuries of landscape change

Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change. Thomas F. McIlwraith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.The primary aim of the University of Toronto Press's Ontario Historical Studies Series (1971-1993) was to describe and analyse the historical development of Ontario as a distinct region within Canada. This was necessary, it was argued, because for many years the main theme in English-Canadian historiography was the emergence of the Canadian nation. Ontario's role in the country's development precluded it from being perceived as a region. Contributor Paul Craven claimed, Almost unconsciously, historians equated the role of the province with that of the nation and often depicted the interests of other regions as obstacles to the unity and welfare of Canada (vii).The series also hoped to encourage historians not directly involved in the project to turn their attention to the province. Judging by the books reviewed here, its directors succeeded as writers continue to be interested in Ontario's past. While several aspects of the province are studied, however, in the works reviewed the extent to which the authors convey a sense of a distinct province varies from book to book.In Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change, geograpner Thomas McIlwraith examines vernacular features of southern Ontario's built environment and the social meanings they convey. The result is a highly readable and well-illustrated book with chapters on surveying building materials, houses, barns, fences, grave markers and many other seemingly mundane topics. As McIlwraith points out, it is regrettable that the ordinary is often taken for granted because routine features of the human environment provide insights into the way in which people interacted with their environment. It will be difficult for anyone who reads this book to look at roads, mills, houses, etc., without trying to determine when they were constructed, by whom and for purposes.Choosing sections of McIlwraith's book to highlight in a review is not easy, because most of them are worth mentioning. One chapter, for example, provides a good account of surveying techniques and the problems associated with the profession in the province's early years.(f.1) McIlwraith adds a human dimension by observing that place names reflect what successive administrators deemed to be meaningful in their (65). There is a useful map and a table tracing the types of place names these officials used. In his chapter on building materials, McIlwraith points out some of Ontario's particularities. In 1931, for example, 27 per cent of the buildings in the province were made of brick, compared with six per cent for Quebec and between one and two per cent for the rest of Canada.(f.2)McIlwraith's ideological position is not explicit but it is clear that his sympathies are with those whose lives and accomplishments usually go unmentioned. In his discussion of grave markers, for example, McIlwraith notes that extant markers identify a biased sample of Ontarians (230) because paupers and those less well-off (half the population, he estimates) could not afford stone monuments. He sheds new light on well-known aspects of the province's past, such as the obsession with property; on some nineteenth-century grave markers, the deceased are identified not only by name but also by the lot and concession number of their holdings.One criticism of Looking for Old Ontario is that McIlwraith attempts to do too much in a single volume. There is no doubt that McIlwraith is enthusiastic about his subject but his descriptions are too brief at times. His chapter on transportation, for example, is not as strong as it should be, largely because of lack of detail about railways, canals, ports, lighthouses and so on.In his conclusion, McIlwraith hopes that readers have been visualizing their own examples of he described and in this he succeeds. …