Papers should be 5-6 pages, 12pt. font, double spaced, with APA format.
Papers will be graded on a 100 point grading scale.
For this project, you will be going out to a cemetery/cemeteries to collect data on gravestones/grave markers. You will have 2 choices on the project you can choose, but in both cases you need to collect data from 30-50 grave markers and your choice of markers will be driven by your chosen topic (do not select them at random). You may need to visit more than one cemetery, so give yourself plenty of time before the paper is due to collect good data. Remember that papers involving data collection are in some ways only as good as the data collected, so it is a good idea to get a range of markers, those that vary in shape and size, those that vary in date or era of death (turn of the century, post 1950’s etc.), those that vary on personal characteristics of the deceased (young/old, male/female, etc.), and those that vary on placement in the cemetery (prices and historical period change depending on location within a cemetery). I highly suggest you take a digital camera or camera phone with you, as this will help your analysis at the end of data collection when you are writing.
Project Option 1: Trends and Inequality in Longevity
This option is inspired by the Davey Smith et al. article you read for Module 2, analyzing height and material of obelisks in historical Scotland to study the connection between wealth and longevity. I suggest that in addition to a camera you take a tape measure to calculate the height or area (height x width) of your grave markers. For this option, it is important to get a mix of markers from different historical areas. Also, gender differences (as surmised by first name and any other text indicating wife, mother, she, etc.) are an interesting and fruitful area for this assignment. Begin by collecting the size and material of grave markers in numerous locations in the cemetery. If possible, collect 2-3 stones of different sizes from similar periods (within a few decades). Also, for gender differences it is good to compare men and women from similar historical periods (birth dates). Often, families are buried together or close by (so one could compare husbands and wives, etc.).
Using the Davey Smith et al. article as a reference and other things you have learned about changes in mortality, you will use the birth and death date on each stone to determine longevity and this will be your outcome/dependent variable. Your independent variables can include historical time (era), age, wealth, and/or gender.
Here are some questions to guide your paper:
Have decedents started living longer as you move forward historically (from distant past to present)?
Have infant and child deaths increased or decreased over history?
Have the size and shape of infant and child markers changed historically? Why do you think this is?
Are the sizes or materials of the headstones (where larger and more expensive materials reflect greater wealth) consistent with greater longevity? Is this consistent across historical time?
Did women live longer than men? Is this true in different historical eras (again it is best to compare stones of men and women born within 20 years apart, then to compare any gender differences by historical period).
What else do you notice about markers and longevity by historical era, wealth, or gender? Are there consistencies that emerge?
Remember that these questions are guidelines or ideas for you, you do not need to address all of them. They are meant to give you a range of options to explore in your papers based on the data you have available (for example, your cemetery only has graves from 1950 to present but there is plenty of gender variation). As with your previous assignments/papers, the most important part of this project is to incorporate course concepts along with course materials and other scholarly literature you find to guide and support your findings.
Project Option 2: Social Relationships and Death: Imagery and Language on Grave Markers
In this course, we have learned quite a bit about the functions of funerals and burials, bereavement, and normative versus non-normative timing and types of death throughout history. We have also learned that the type and planning of funerals and the imagery and language used to describe the dead is both a function of the decedent’s identity but also their loved ones and community. This project is inspired by Ritter’s (2012) thesis “Grave Exclamations: An Analysis of Tombstones and Their Use as Narrative of Self”. For this project you will focus on social relationships and primarily family relationships in analyzing the wording and imagery on gravestones and how these change historically. It will be important that you choose gravestones from men and women, and from those with different ages at death and different historical periods (but you would be surprised at how these change even in 50 years). The main questions your paper will address are: How do the primary social relationships we carry throughout life define who we are in death? How do they define those we leave behind, their grief, and how they remember us?
*Note* although we have not analyzed different common symbols used on grave markers, a number of geneology and other “history buff” websites offer the meanings behind symbols. These sites can be searched and cited in your research in what grave symbols represent. See for example: http://msghn.org/usghn/symbols.html
Here are some questions to guide your paper:
Are their consistent themes in images (rings, etc.) and language of spouses on gravestones? How are they different by gender? How are they different over historical time (for example: use of the term “wife of” was common historically but is rarer today. Men were rarely described as “husband of”. “Beloved” is another word that is often gendered and age dependent, as is listing the decedent’s occupation) Why do you think these consistencies and differences exist? How might historical shifts in these images and wording convey changing ideas about gender and marriage? Note: you do not have to compare spouses to each other, just examining wording on individual markers is sufficient in how individuals are and continue to be defined by spousal ties in death.
How much of a role does parenthood and grandparenthood play in grave markers? Are decedent and family identities apparent in the listing of children or words/images suggesting motherhood/fatherhood? Does this vary by historical era? Does it vary by gender? How might these differences in historical time and gender reflect the importance placed on childbearing across ages or genders? How might it reflect changes in the number of children people have? How might changes in language of grandparenthood reflect a society increasingly living long enough to know and interact with multiple grandchildren as they grow up?
How do markers of young decedents (infants, children, or teenagers) differ from adults and older adults in their imagery and language? What social relationships are reflected and how is wording different? Have these shifted historically?
Are there any other consistencies or themes that emerge? Are there religious or potentially cultural differences that you ascertain (depending on where you are geographically, there may be quite a lot of diversity or very little).
Remember that these questions are guidelines or ideas for you, you do not need to address all of them. They are meant to give you a range of options to explore in your papers based on the data you have available (for example, your cemetery only has graves from 1950 to present but there is plenty of gender variation). As with your previous assignments/papers, the most important part of this project is to incorporate course concepts along with course materials and other scholarly literature you find to guide and support your findings.
