____________________________________________________________________________________
News & Events, November 2011 Dear Friend,
The Friends of Mount Auburn is pleased to present the November 2010 edition of our electronic newsletter. We invite you to join our email list to receive this mailing on a monthly basis. To ensure that you continue to receive emails from us, add friends@mountauburn.org to your address book today.
____________________________________________________________________
|
______________________________________________________________
Note: If you use Outlook 2007, you might see some formatting irregularities in your e-letter,
such as gaps of space between article headers and text. To correct this compatibility glitch,
select "View in Browser" from the "Other Actions" menu on your message toolbar.
____________________________________________________________________
|
 | | Monument of Julia Ward Howe, Lot 4987 Spruce Avenue |
"Be Jubilant my Feet"
Music from the Civil War
Saturday, November 12, 3 PM
In November of 1861 poet and activist Julia Ward Howe penned the lyrics to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" while visiting Union Troops in Washington, D.C.
Join us in Story Chapel to celebrate the 150th anniversary of this important Civil War song and other music from the era that captured the spirit of a country in the tangles of war.
Libby Franck will portray Julia Ward Howe and the Proper Ladies (Deborah Goss and Anabel Graetz) will perform a capella songs from the era during this special program.
Refreshments will be provided. Fee:$10 members; $15 non-members. Register online today!
Libby Franck is a storyteller and Deborah Goss and Anabel Graetz are in the 19th century performing group, "The Proper Ladies."
__________________________________________________________________
|
 Friends of Mount Auburn November Programs There are plenty of reasons to visit us this November. Take advantage of the remaining nice weather with a walk through the Cemetery. Many of our trees and shrubs are currently turning jewel-tone shades of red, orange, yellow, and purple, making a perfect backdrop for any exploration of Mount Auburn. Maps, self-guided brochures, and audio tours are available for purchase at our Visitors Center daily from 9 AM to 4:30 PM. Stop at the Egyptian Revival Gatehouse and check the Bird Sightings board for the most recent wildlife sightings. And, while you are there, make sure you take some time to explore our interactive kiosk! Attend one of our exciting public programs this month. From history to horticulture to notable figures, our November schedule of events offers something for everyone:
Visit us online to see our entire schedule and register for any of these upcoming programs.
_________________________________________________________________
|
 | Purple Finch
by Jeremiah Trimble |
Wildlife at Mount Auburn Cemetery
The Purple Finch
by Robert H. Stymeist
Yes, this accompanying photograph is really a Purple Finch. Females and immature males are brown with a bold whitish eyebrow stripe which distinguishes them from the plain faced House Finch which is much more common here in Massachusetts. The name Purple is also misleading for the color of the adult male; it's more the color of raspberry.
Roger Tory Peterson described the Purple Finch as a "sparrow dipped in raspberry juice." Here in Massachusetts we tend to see more first year birds, like the photograph, than the adult males. The Purple Finch is an uncommon breeder in Massachusetts and as far as I know it has not been noted to nest in Mount Auburn since the days of William Brewster, who wrote in his Birds of the Cambridge Region (1906)." The juniper woods which once covered so much of the country lying between Mount Auburn and the Watertown Arsenal, used to attract Purple Finches at all seasons, and the birds bred there so commonly at times that on June 6, 1869, I found no less than six nests containing eggs or young within a space of half an acre."
Purple Finches prefer to nest in moist, coniferous forests, especially near a bog but also occur in mixed deciduous forests; here in Massachusetts they are found in the Berkshires and there is a small population that nests on Plum Island.
Purple Finches are among the winter finches that are referred to as irruptive, that is, especially with finches, if the food supply, i.e. the cone crop is poor the birds tend to move south looking for food. Every Year, ornithologists in Canada prepare a winter finch forecast, this year they predict that the Purple Finch will be uncommon in Ontario but will be in higher numbers in Atlantic Canada and New England where the cone crop is excellent. The Purple Finch population has declined significantly in recent decades; ornithologists believe the decrease is the absence of large spruce budworm outbreaks that probably sustained higher populations in the past.
Look for the Purple Finch anywhere at Mount Auburn - one was coming to the feeder at Auburn Lake last winter!
_________________________________________________________________
|
 | |
Ginkgo biloba
|
Horticultural Highlight: Ginko biloba
...in November, on a single night Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees That stand along the walk drop all their leaves In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind But as though to time alone: the golden and green Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light. -Howard Nemerov Ginkgo biloba, the ginkgo tree, can be one of our most spectacular trees for golden, autumn color. The long-stalked, fan-shaped, simple, leaves are 2-3 inches long, and wide, and occur in clusters of 3-5, on short spurs along the tree's branch stems. There sometimes is a notch along the broad summit of some of its leaves, creating a butterfly-shape, and hence the epithet "biloba." In late-autumn there is a tendency for most of a tree's leaves to curiously all fall off, during a one-to-five-day period of time, hence the Nemerov poem.
The Ginkgo has been termed a "living fossil" and an "emblem of changelessness". It is one of the oldest surviving tree taxa on earth, with fossils of related species found that date back to at least 270-million years ago. This heritage is to a time beyond when dinosaurs thrived and roamed the earth. Today, Ginkgo biloba is termed monotypic, meaning it is the only species in the genus. Additionally Ginkgo is the only genus in the family, GINKGOACEAE.
Ginkgo biloba is native to Eastern China, and during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220) it was known as a holy tree. In China, it has been the subject of poems and paintings, from the 11th century. Introduced into Japan from the Yangtze River delta region, it was in Japan, in 1690, that the German, naturalist-explorer, Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) first observed Ginkgo in a Japanese temple garden and gave the plant the name Ginkgo. The first live trees arrived in Europe at the Utrecht Botanic Garden, Netherlands, about 1730. It first came to the United States from London, in 1785, to the Philadelphia area. Today, in Philadelphia, at Bartram's Garden, one surviving tree planted in 1785 is commonly recognized as the oldest Ginkgo in the U. S. In China there are individual trees known to be older than 1000-years, and some have speculated that Ginkgo may live as long as 2000 years.
The inconspicuous flowers of Ginkgo biloba, which occur in the spring, are deciduous, meaning there are separate male and female trees. The fruit, found only on female tree, is not a true "fruit," but a seed with a fleshy, outer layer. This fleshy layer is orange-colored when ripe, and the source of the infamous foul odor. Inside a woody, nut-like structure contains a soft, kernel-like seed. For centuries these seeds have been considered to have medicinal value. The seeds are still marketed on a large scale and are an important Chinese export crop. Extracts from Ginkgo leaves also have several medicinal values; used to increase vasodilation and peripheral blood-flow rates, and effective in the treatment of arthritis, tinnitus, and some eye conditions.
The interesting reputation of long survivability of Ginkgo biloba is enhanced by a famous specimen still growing at the site of the 1945 atom bomb at Hiroshima, Japan. One tree located 800 yards from the epicenter had its trunk destroyed, but sprouted from its base, and it still grows there today.
We have more than two-dozen Ginkgo biloba growing at Mount Auburn! On your next autumn visit look for these living fossils on Garden Avenue, Halcyon Avenue, Magnolia Avenue, Spruce Avenue, Walnut Avenue, Pearl Avenue, Cherry Avenue, Western Avenue, Bradlee Road, Field Road, Narcissus Path, Indian Ridge Path, Robin Path, Mist Path, Arethusa Path, Sparrow Path, Aralia Path, and Ilex Path.
...
Come experience the beauty of autumn at the Cemetery with Visitors Services Assistant Jim Gorman, who will lead Awash in Color - a fall foliage walk on Sunday, November 6th at 1 PM.
Or join us for Preserving a Horticultural Treasure, a lunch time talk with Dennis Collins, Mount Auburn's Horticultural Curator at noon on Thursday, November 17th.
_________________________________________________________________
|
 Thank you Friends Members!
It was wonderful to see so many of our members during Members Week (October 16 - 22) and hope that you were able to take advantage of the special Members' Week incentives at the Cemetery and beyond. Membership in the Friends of Mount Auburn provides valuable support for the preservation and interpretation of this National Historic Landmark. Among the benefits of membership, Friends receive reduced admission to our programs, invitations to special members events, and copies of our magazine Sweet Auburn. If you are not already a member, consider joining today!
__________________________________________________________________
|
 | |
1881 Cyanotype, Joseph Collins, Cemetery Gardener
|
Preservation & Historical Collections Highlight
Photograph Collections at Mount Auburn
When photography burst upon the scene in 1839, the medium provided a new way of documenting and remembering Mount Auburn's sacred landscape. (The earliest visual representations of the Cemetery, founded in 1831, had been rendered in the form of finely drawn engravings.) Today the photograph collections, accumulated for more than a century and a half, offer multiple perspectives of the Cemetery's rich history.
Housed in Mount Auburn's Historical Collections Department, photographs have originated from a variety of sources within the Cemetery (including business records, superintendent reports, and staff albums), and the collection actively grows through additional gifts and purchases. Over time, noted photographers, staff, and associates intimately familiar with the Cemetery have documented Mount Auburn. A broad range of formats and processes in the collection spans the history of the medium-from early salt prints, stereo views, glass-plate negatives, and lantern slides to 35mm slides, color prints, and digital images.
Researchers will be fascinated to find evocative images of Story and Bigelow Chapels, monuments, and mausolea representing the funerary artwork of celebrated 19th- and 20th-century architects and sculptors; seasonal views of trees, horticulture, and landscape design; and intriguing documentary shots revealing the inner workings of the Cemetery, such as maintenance buildings, cemetery personnel, and Mount Auburn programs and events from the 19th century to the present.
In 2011 Curator of Historical Collections Meg Winslow spearheaded a number of exciting initiatives that will bring to light and encourage the use of these extensive visual resources. Consultants Sara Goldberg and Melissa Banta completed a detailed inventory of the photograph holdings. In the process of identifying and reorganizing the contents of more than 110 boxes, they viewed every photograph in the collection.
A newly created index of subject headings will serve as a standard classification system with which to organize and access the photograph holdings as well as other collections throughout the Cemetery. Mount Auburn trustee and volunteer Caroline Loughlin is currently cataloguing photographs into the Collection's database, which will provide ready access to the images through a number of search terms.
The photograph inventory also presented the opportunity to undertake critical preservation measures including removing light sensitive images for scanning; separating negatives from positives to ensure prints are stored separately from their originals; and placing collections in archival housing as needed. Volunteers Frances Pratt and Sue Carlson labeled, rehoused, and filed color Polaroids, which are especially susceptible to fading from exposure to light. Docent Stephen Pinkerton's familiarity with the grounds enabled him to recognize sites captured in several photographs that were difficult to identify and lacked any documentation.
Original estimates of the number of photographs in the collection hovered around 6,000 images. After the massive reorganization of the holdings was complete, Olivia Tyson, a student from Arlington High School contributing community service hours, began to systematically review and account for every photograph in the collection. Only one third of the way through the files, she has already counted more than 5,700 images!
From sweeping aerial shots of the grounds to detailed views of grave markers, the collections offer ample opportunity for new discoveries about Mount Auburn's varied and changing landscape and the history of the rural cemetery movement. "I can't say how thrilled I am that we have accomplished this exciting project," Meg Winslow notes. "As a result we have created another portal into the extraordinary-and still unplumbed-visual history of Mount Auburn."
For further information about the photographic resources, please contact the Curator of Historical Collections, Meg L. Winslow at mwinslow@mountauburn.org or 617-607-1942.
_________________________________________________________________
|
 | |
Egyptian Revival Gateway through the years
|
November History Highlight: 1911 - Superintendent may issue permit to enter Cemetery with an automobile.
After several decades of visitors arriving by carriage, omnibus and on foot, Mount Auburn had to adapt to a new method of transportation that visitors were using. In the same way that carriage access to Mount Auburn Cemetery had to be regulated over the years, when automobiles came onto the scene Mount Auburn gradually granted admission.
In 1908 proprietors were permitted to enter the Cemetery in automobiles and then in November of 1911, the Superintendent authorized admission of non-proprietors on a case by case basis. By 1912 the rules had relaxed to allow all automobiles but consequently an additional watchman was needed. One year later iron gates were added on either side of the Egyptian Revival Gateway to allow for automobiles. The 1913 Annual Report commented that "the architectural effect of the entrance has been enhanced rather than diminished." _______________________________________________________________ |
 | |
Monuments of Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward Howe, Lot 4987, Spruce Avenue
|
Person of the Month: Samuel Gridley Howe
This month marks the birth of Reformer, Physician, Abolitionist and Educator Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801 - January 9, 1876), who is buried in Lot 4987, Spruce Avenue at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Around the same time as the founding of Mount Auburn Cemetery in 1831, John Dix Fisher appointed Samuel Gridley Howe to be director of the New England Asylum for the Blind - a school Fisher had founded a few years earlier. The school had no building, no teachers, and no students. When the school for the blind did "open" with an early enrollment of six students operating out of Howe's father's home, it was nearly immediately in need of a bigger building. Shortly thereafter, Thomas Handasyd Perkins (Lot 108, Central Avenue), a wealthy Boston merchant, donated his home for the school's use, eventually selling it and using funds generated to purchase a hotel in South Boston to house the school. Around this time, the school changed its name to the Perkins Institute for the Blind, in honor of its generous benefactor. Ten years later, a decade after being appointed director of what would become the extremely successful Perkins Institute, Howe met his future wife, Julia Ward, (Lot 4987, Spruce Avenue) a New York socialite, women's suffragist, and abolitionist sympathizer, when she visited the school with her friends Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Lot 380, Indian Ridge Path) and Charles Sumner (Lot 2447, Arethusa Path). Howe believed that the blind should be taught exactly like sighted children. To help them overcome the obstacle of reading, Howe developed an embossed alphabet called Boston Line Type - a tactile writing system of raised letters which could be read by touch - a system later replaced by Braille in the early 1900's. Well-known for his work with the blind, Howe used his popularity to aid other causes and reform campaigns. He aided Dorothea Dix (Lot 4731, Spruce Avenue) in the fight to enforce state regulations in the treatment and care of the mentally ill. Along with Boston reformer Horace Mann, Howe crusaded for reforms to the prison system in Boston and helped to institute regulations for the operation of Boston's normal schools. As anti-slavery sentiments in America grew, Howe devoted himself almost exclusively to the abolitionist cause - publishing the abolitionist paper The Boston Commonwealth for three and a half years with his wife Julia. As political tensions over slavery came to a boiling point, Howe joined a group of five other men later known as the "Secret Six," which also included minister and author Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, educator Franklin Sanborn, and businessmen Gerrit Smith and George Luther Sterns (Lot 1454, Sedge Path). Together, these six men helped arm and finance abolitionist John Brown. Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, however, ended the work of the Secret Six and instead brought the country even closer to war. Through the Civil War, Howe focused his attentions on emancipation. _________________________________________________________________ |
|
|
|
|
Beyond Our Gates: Events of Interest to the Community
The Cambridge Public Library will host a living history of the Civil War on Saturday, November 5th from 10:00 - 5:00 on the Main Library Lawn at 449 Broadway.
The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University will host a photo exhibit of Trees and Gardens by Joseph Flack Weiler, now through December 18th in the Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall, 125 Arborway, Boston.
Artist and Naturalist Clare Walker Leslie will have an exhibit of recent works at LA Capelli Salon & Gallery on Massachusetts Ave in Cambridge, November 7, 2011 - January 11, 2012. The show will include sketches of Mount Auburn's Great Horned Owls!
Mount Auburn staff are participating in the Historic Cemetery Preservation Workshop in Lowell, MA on November 18, 2011. Vice President of Preservation and Facilities Bill Barry and Chief of Conservation David Gallagher will be presenting a case study on historic metalwork conservation and Vice President of External Affairs Bree Harvey will be speaking in the session "Telling the Story and Engaging the Public."
|
|
Think green. Do not print this email and you will help to conserve valuable
resources. Thank you!
______________________________________________________________________ |
Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery
____________________________
email: friends@mountauburn.org
______________________________________________________________
| |
|
|
|
