Pittsburgh's Allegheny Cemetery and l the Victorian Garden of the Dead Book Review Essay by Roy Lubove

Allegheny Cemetery: A than aquarter-century, 1830-1860). city of the dead, in essence, was the Landscape in Itbrought forth, among educated prototype for the city of the living. Romantic wealthy urbanites, a visionofthe city Pittsburgh ofthe dead as a model for the city of The American rural cemetery like By Walter Kidney tne living.Allegheny Cemetery thus Allegheny was rooted, in part, in Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh History & exemplified anextraordinary episode changing attitudes toward burial and Foundation, i Landmarks 1990. Pp. 156. in western Before examin- funerary architecture ineighteenth $34.95 culture. Forcword, illustrations, index. j Waher Ki^y^superbly illus- century France, culminating in the I trated volume on Allegheny Ceme- famed Parisian cemetery of Pere [T]hese cemeteries were all the tery^ it is necessary to explore that Lachaise (1804). Inhis monumen- rage, and so deeply was the want broader context ofAnglo-American tal analysis of The Architecture of felt which they supplied, and so aesthetic theory, social values, and Death, Richard Etlinasserts that Pere { beautiml were they inthem- 1 truly landscape design in the 18th and Lachaise "represents a turningpoint selves, that itis not to be won- 19th centuries. in one thousand years of Western dered at ifpeople were slow to The first and most in ntial of history." Itembodied new attitudes perceive that there was a certain the romantic cemeteries was Mount toward death and burial translated— incongruity between a graveyard Auburn, established in1831inCam- into a new form language the and a place of recreation. The bridge,Mass. Itwas emulated, inthe picturesque landscape or garden of truth is, people were glad to get following decade, by Laurel Hill, the dead: "Almost every plot was fresh air,and a sight ofgrass, and Philadelphia, 1836; Green-Wood, surrounded by a railing of wood or trees, and flowers with,now and Brooklyn, 1838; Mount Hope, iron and planted with shrubs and then, apretty piece ofsculpture... Rochester, N.Y.,1838; and Albany fragrant flowers. The tombstones without considering too deeply Rural Cemetery% 1841 , Cemeteries themselves were hung with wreaths whether itmight not be better to based on these models then spread ofleaves and flowers, and wildtrain- have itall without the graves and widelythroughout the East and Mid- ing vines were abundant." 2 It was the funeral -Clar- processions. wcst#1 The mral cemetery was an redolent also with history, the rest- enccC. Cook, ADescription ofthe extraordinary during place France, - • cultural icon ing ofthe illustrious of New YorkCentral Park, 1869 tc u^™™,, k^,^ ™^_ its briefK f hegemony because its\+* pic- and with—a riot of great funerary turesque landscape and moral tute- sculpture a kind ofunearthly com- lage offered the living guidance on petition among the dead toinhabit MOSTPittsburghersdonotrealize that the 300-acre the qualities of a benign environ- the greatest, grandest tomb. Allegheny Cemetery, es- ment and social order, one which The radical transformation of the tablished in the city's Lawrenceville contrasted favorably with the emer- city of the dead could not have oc- neighborhood in 1844, has more gent industrial civilization. Therural curred without a new sensibility in than local significance. Yet the Vic- cemetery served its educated, elite Western culture, one which viewed torian rural or romantic cemetery, sponsors as an experiment inUtopia the traditional cemetery (i.e., the embodied inAllegheny, profoundly building;itenabled them to design a mass communal grave inthe heart of influenced and reflected American totally controlled environment which Paris) as "pernicious to the health attitudes toward lifeas well as death would reflect their aesthetic, reli- and revolting to the senses." More- (although itflourished forlittlemore gious, social,and cultural values. The over, the treatment of the dead as so much refuse was an affront to "the RoyLubove, aprofessor ofsocial welfareand history at the University ofPittsburgh, dignity ofhuman life itself." 3 A is a frequent contributor to Pittsburgh History. His numerous books and articles very new include several in environmental studies: "Social History and the History of concept of burial, compatible Landscape Architecture" {Journal ofSocialHistory,1975); "Landscape, Landscape with a new romantic sensibility, re- Architecture and Community Development inAmerican Life"{Journal ofSocial quired a landscape of consolation History,1990); "H.W.S. Cleveland and the Urban-Rural Continuum inAmerican rather than terror and fear. AnArca- Landscape Architecture" (introduction to Cleveland's Landscape Architecture as dian tableau beyond the city, in- Applied to the Wants ofthe West [Pittsburgh, 1965]). spired byeighteenth-century English

148 Book Reviews aesthetic theory and landscape gar- ington. Its aesthetic theorist was the preposterous because a painting rep- dening, would enable the living to ThirdEarl ofShaftesbury. Thepub- resents afixed,one-dimensional per- commemorate and unite with the licists included Joseph Addison in spective, whilealandscape is a three- dead in a kind of cosmic continuity The Spectator and Alexander Pope in dimensional experience whichvaries mediated bynature. Such commun- The Guardian. They subscribed to over time and space. Rather, the ion would be impossible amidst the the aesthetics of Platonic Idealism great landscape art of Poussin and stenches and disease -generating mi- delineated by Shaftesbury in The his contemporaries suggested a sim- asmas of the traditional graveyard. Moralists (1709). He declared that ilar enhancement ofnature through Itwould be a didactic commun- harmony, proportion and balance art using trees, water, and soil in- ion in which the living would be were the essence ofboth beauty and stead ofpaint. inspired and instructed by the illus- morality (ortruth— ).Beauty and truth The landscapes of Brown and trious dead. The new cemetery would inlandscape the qualities ofhar-— Repton, for the most part, favored function as an academy of moral mony, proportion and balance the beautiful as the most appropriate philosophy, "a call to the glory that demanded a repudiation of the se- expression ofShaftesbury's neo-clas- rewards beneficent virtue and intel- verely geometric and architectonic sical aesthetic ofharmony, balance, lectual prowess." The new Parisian landscapes of the French, Italians and proportion. Thus the English cemetery and its successors in the countryside became a worldoflakes, United States thus testified toa "faith serpentine paths, gently undulating inthe natural harmony ofethics and "Almost every plot terrain, clusters oftrees, shrubs, bush- esthetics, and in the necessary docil- was surrounded es, and flowers. But this concept ofa ity of the public to lessons which by gentle pastoral universe was sharply came to them through the sens- a railing of wood or challenged in the late eighteenth es...." 4 century by exponents of the pictur- These lessons would be commu- iron and planted esque. Rev. WilliamGilpinpublished nicated through the cemetery's ar- with shrubs and his Observations Relative to Pictur- rangement of art and nature to re- esque Beautyin 1789.He singled out flect the attributes of beauty and fragrant flowers. "roughness" as the foundation of picturesqueness. Alongwiththe con- the picturesque aesthetic: "rough- cept of the sublime, the beautiful The tombstones ness of texture, with irregularity of and the picturesque were the con- themselves were outline, withcontrasting lights and trolling aesthetic values in the ex- shades, withvariegated and gradu- traordinary transformation of the hung with wreaths ated colors." ButGilpinrepresented eighteenth century English landscape a dead end in the application of the associated withWilliamKent,Lance- ofleaves and picturesque to landscape because of lot (Capability) Brown and flowers, and wild his identification of the picturesque Humphry Repton: with painterly or pictorial represen- training vines were tation.7 Itwas at Rousham, between 1720 More forceful advocacy came and 1725, and later at Stowe, that abundant." from Sir Uvedale Price, author of Kent created the first two great Essay on the Picturesque \u25a0 (1794) and works of that picturesque land- and Dutch (especially, at the outset, his friend, Richard Payne Knight. scape art which Brown was to the topiary style). Fornearly a centu- Price did not define the picturesque practise with such distinction and ry the English would struggle to as landscapes which emulated pic- on such an enormous scale thathe define the alternative landscape, and tures; rather, he pursued "principles did what no one man had ever specifically the mixofsublime, beau- ofcomposition governing all visual done before or has everdone since , tifuland picturesque which best ex- phenomena, isolated to be sure in transformed the countryside of a pressed the beauty and truth inher- the works of great painters." 8 This land. In both cases he created ent in nature. 6 involved sharp critiques ofthe beau- gardens as landscape paintings, Significant also in shaping the tiful as an exclusive basis for land- using 'classical' buildings, hills, new aesthetic of nature and its ex- scape design, a sustained effort to water, trees and carefully planned pression inlandscape gardening was define the attributes of the pictur- perspectives to make 'natural' the tradition of17th century land- esque which distinguished it from scenes such as would never have scape painting, evident most nota- both the sublime and the beautiful, occurred in nature.... 5 bly in works by Poussin, Claude and the creation ofan aesthetic ofart Lorrain, and Salvator Rosa. It was innature whichsynthesized— thebeau- The revolution intaste expressed not a question of translating their tifuland picturesque as did nature inKent's landscapes had a powerful paintings of the sublime and beauti- itself. Thus the monotony and bland- and influential patron inLordBurl- ful into landscapes; the concept is ness ofthe beautiful wouldbe invig-

149 Pittsburgh History, Fall1992 It a orated by the roughness, variety, a way as tointensify the moral expe- console. was tobe grim remind- ofdeath; even and surprise of the picturesque. 9 rience, to design a physical environ- er of the imminence Eighteenth century aesthetic ment which would stir the senses children "were made to think of speculation culminated inArchibald and emotions and imagination. Thus death at as early an age as nature Alison's influential Essays on the Na- would "the Material Universe would allow." By the early nine- century, parish church burial ture and Principles of Taste, first around us" become a "scene ofmoral teenth published in 1790. Alison's theory discipline." 11 grounds were likely tobe crowded, subjective helped es- chaotic, "foulsmelling, unattractive of association 15 tablish the philosophical basis for Eighteenth century English land- eyesores." They blocked the path nineteenth century romantic art, ar- scape design exemplified the art of ofurban expansion and were thus an chitecture, and landscape; most per- the beautiful and picturesque; En- economic burden. Most important, tinently, his theory affirmed the link glish aesthetic speculation led to a they were increasingly feared as putrefactions between sensory—perception and eth- theory ofsubjective association which health hazards whose ics ormorality so central torural linked sensory impression withmor- emitted disease -breeding gases and cemetery advocacy in the United al awareness through the workings miasmas. States. Alison overturned aesthetics ofthe imagination. 12 The French, in The repudiation ofthe tradition- rooted inPlatonic Idealism, the be- alburial ground and a democratiza- lief that beauty or other attributes tion of the prospects for eternal life were inherent in the object and in- "Eighteenth in the bosom of Jesus did not lead dependent ofthe observer. Instead, automatically to the adoption ofthe he established a subjective basis for century English large-scale, rural-romantic cemetery. aesthetic experience, a view critical Itspopularity inante-bellum Amer- to the emergence of romantic ex- landscape design ica derived from its fulfillment of pression in western culture. He ar- exemplified the art powerful social and cultural aspira- gued that when objects ofbeauty or tions. It represented a design- or sublimity stimulated the senses and of the beautiful and form-language through which those emotions, they simultaneously stirred aspirations could be expressed. the imagination. Itwas thispower of picturesque;" The rural cemetery was a unique imagination which precipitated the response to disintegration of the train ofassociation which endowed unity of "family, church and com- the sensory impressions with moral Pere Lachaise in 1804, had applied munity" in the period 1780 to or ethical significance. Indeed, in English landscape practices to cem- 1820. 16 Itrepresented analternative the absence of imagination, any etery design. The question is why community, aplanned environment emotional sentiment would be va- did Americans throughout the East which would nurture family unity, pid: "Ifthe mind is in such a state as and Midwest,beginning withMount- religious idealism and community to prevent... freedom of imagina- Auburn Cemetery in1831,feel com cohesion. Ashistorian Thomas Bend- tion, the emotion... is unper- pelled to create a new world of the er has explained, the romantic cem- ceived." 10 dead in the form of a pastoral and etery would serve as a "counter- According to Alison, the goal of picturesque Arcadia? 13 point" to "America's rapidly grow- the artist or landscape gardener was One powerful incentive to create ingcities, marked by visual monoto- to improve upon and not merely a new habitat was the condition of ny and social chaos.... As the urban imitate nature. This improved na- the parish graveyards. A second was environment became paved over, ture, purged ofits flaws, would have a diminished fearfulness inthe con- more hurried and commercial, a a more powerful impact upon the templation of death deriving from change of scenery, reminiscent of imagination and the associations and pantheistic rationalism, romantic the rural past, a readily accessible moral reflections itwould stimulate. sentimentalism, and the possibilities natural sanctuary withinclose prox- The superiority ofartinlandscape to ofuniversal, egalitarian salvation. In imity to the city, became neces-- original nature "consists inthe puri- contrast to today, when a visit to a sary." 17 Thispowerful need for com ty and harmony ofits composition, NewEngland colonial graveyard is a munality and moral order found oth- in the power which the artist enjoys, cheerful prospect, "the first colo- erexpressions inthe early nineteenth to remove fromhis landscape what- nists brought with them a half-pa- century, all of which involved art or everis hostile toits effect, or unsuit- gan,half-Christian heritage ofburial artistic enhancement ofnature. With ed toits character." At the disposal and graveyard design.... The under- one exception, they all involved a of the artist were "all the sublimity world, the perpetually sunless place concept of community which con- and beauty ofthemoral and intellec- of Hell, demons, and putrefaction trasted with and repudiated the ex- tual world." The challenge, then, quivered beneath the graveyard panding urban-commercial culture. for the creators ofthe rural cemeter- grass." 14 The Puritan church grave- The zeal for monument building ies was to apply art tonature insuch yard was not meant to comfort and in the period, such as the Bunker

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Hillor Washington obelisks, testi- ing forms, and the latter by "strik- most ofall, adorn the lives and daily fied to the quest for a national iden- ing, irregular, spirited forms." Also conduct of its people." 23 tityinante-bellum America: monu- in keeping with the English tradi- Massachusetts villages best ap- ments "could become the cement of tion,he affirmed the aesthetic prin- proximated Downing's ideal of a patriotism, holding individual ele- ciple which was central torural cem- non-urban environment which fa- ments and succeeding generations etery design: "By Landscape Gar- cilitated good citizenship. From end together in a grip of virtuous emo- dening, we understand not only an to end, the State was filled with tion."18 They would affirm republi- imitation... but an expressive, har- flourishing villages whose tree-lined can idealism, patriotism, spirituality, monious, and refined imitation. In streets sheltered "goodly rows of and the existence ofa national com- Landscape Gardening, we should neat and substantial dwellings, full munity. As in the romantic ceme- aim to separate the accidental and of evidences oforder, comfort, and tery, the force of history and com- extraneous in nature, and to pre- taste." The citizens of Massachu- memoration wouldlinkgenerations. serve only the spirit, or essence." 21 setts, he believed, understood the Theromantic suburb ofLlewellyn Downing's landscape aesthetic advantage, "morally and socially, of Park, Orange, N.J., established in corresponded with that of the rural orderly,neat, tasteful villages;inpro- 1853, offered an alternative way of cemeteries. Similarly, he related de- ducing better citizens,incausing the life for those unfulfilled orfrustrated sign choice—to social and cultural laws to be respected, in making by the city. Designed by Alexander objectives ifart refined and im- homes dear and more sacred, in J. Davis, and consisting of350 acres proved upon nature, then nature making domestic lifeand the enjoy- on the eastern slope ofa mountain, would be better equipped to convey ment of property to be more truly the community was nestled amidst its ethical and moral lessons, pro- and rightly esteemed." 24 forests of oak, hickory, chestnut, ducing better citizens and commu- Downing, like other exponents cedar, and pine. Located inthe cen- nitylife.And,again like the creators ofanArcadian republic, realized that ter of the tract, comprising some 60 of the rural cemeteries, he saw inthe cities and industry could not be abol- acres, the village was encircled byan countryside an alternative (and su- ished. What could be accomplished access road. It was traversed by a perior) way oflife: was the creation ofa countervailing wooded ravine, "affording material force, an alternative model. Thus,if for ornamental water and cascades, It is... love ofrural life and this the city could not be eliminated, it which have been tastefully made nice feeling of the harmonious could be naturalized. Nature, the throughout its course." Sprinkled union of nature and art, that re- pastoral, could be incorporated into throughout the grounds were flects so much credit upon the the urban fabric. Downingbecame a "kiosks,seats, and bridges, construct- English as a people, and which, leading exponent ofmunicipal parks ed in rustic-work, to be in keeping sooner or later we hope to see for the deprived urban populations, with the natural character of the completely naturalized in this an amenity and source ofsocial bet- surrounding forests." 19 country. Under its enchanting terment well advanced in Europe. Llewellyn Park might be de- influence, the toogreat bustle and Originating as pleasure grounds for scribed as a tragic tribute to A.J. excitement ofour commercial cit- royalty and aristocracy, theyhad now Davis's friend and colleague, An- ies willbehappilycounterbalanced become public spaces. Among the drew Jackson Downing. During his by the more elegant and quiet parks cited by Downing were the brief lifetime (1815-1852), Down- enjoyments ofcountry life.22 Garden ofthe Tuileries inthe heart ing exerted a profound influence on ofParis; the 500-acre public garden American architectural and landscape InDowning's view,those who cared in Munich established by Count practice. More than any single indi- nothing for the appearance of their Rumford; the broad greenbelt sur- vidual,he adapted— the English land- communities and homes were likely rounding Frankfurt ("one of the scape tradition of Kent, Brown, to be morally deficient. Indeed a most delightful sights inthe world"); Repton, —Price, Knight, and J.C. community barren ofstreets planted the connected— series of great Lon- Loudon to the American scene: with trees signified the prevalence of don parks Hyde Park, Regent's "It was he who removed from the moral delinquency; men who "do Park, St. James and Green parks and rural countryside the connotation of not care how their own homes and Kensington Gardens. London was the awkward,— unwashed, and unlet- villages look, they care very littlefor also blessed withitsmany "squares," tered and so described the de- fulfillingany moral obligations not filled with trees, shrubs, flowers and lights and rewards ofrurallivingthat made compulsory by the strong arm fountains, as well as the nearby among the fashionable he started a of the law...." But contemplate a Hampton Court, Richmond Park massive exodus to the open country- community graced by avenues of and the National Gardens at Kew.25 side." 20 Downing's aesthetic cen- elms and other expressions ofgood Downing expressed disdain for tered on the distinction between— the taste, "and you also place before us the 160 acre park proposed in1851 beautiful and picturesque the the fact, that itis where order, good for New York Cityby Mayor Kings- former characterized bysimple flow- character, and virtuous deportment land. Itwas littlemore than a child's

151 Pittsburgh History, Fall1992 playground for cityofnearly three- interred there.... Itdisplayed fam- expected that it would be a place a can quarter million. Downing suggest- ilyvalues and enduring social co- "where monuments be erected men... one com- ed noless than 500 acres, and envi- hesion inthe face of...death. Vis- to our illustrious sioned the park as the center of the itors wouldprofitspiritually from mon depository, where their great city's social and culture life.Itwould its many lessons. 27 deeds might be perpetuated and their monuments, art, winter gar- memories cherished by succeeding contain 29 dens ofglass, zoological gardens as CitingMount Auburn,Green-Wood generations." in London and Paris, horticultural and Laurel Hill,Downing pro- The union of art and nature in and industrial exhibits. Downing claimed that the United States had the rural cemetery was calculated to admonished hiscontemporaries who surpassed Europe in the creation of establish a newrelationship between uso little understand the elevating beautiful rural cemeteries. Their living and dead. This was a com- influences of the beautiful innature popularity insured the success of pound ofromantic melancholy and and inart, when enjoyed incommon comparable urban parks, which sentimentalism, didactic moralism bythousands and hundreds ofthou- would "largelycivilizeand refine the and religious piety. There was much sands ofall classes without distinc- national character." 28 in common between the cemetery tion! They can never have seen, how ethos and the consolation literature all over France and Germany, the The rural cemetery represented of the period, "the mourners' man- whole population of the cities pass one of the great cultural achieve- uals, lachrymose verse, obituary fic- their afternoons and evenings to- ments of the United States. Itbe- tion and necrophiliac biographies gether, in the same beautiful parks came the vessel for the landscape art popular at the time...." According and gardens." Mostimportant,— per- and aethestic theory of18th century to one authority, AnnDouglas, this haps, the public— park nature re- Britain,including the critically im- pervasive literature represented a fined by art would become a portant association of the senses and "sentimentalization of Northern source ofsocial harmony inthe class- the moral faculties. Inthe cemetery, culture" promoted byclergy, wom- riddled cities;itwouldfunction as an art improved upon nature and thus en, and the non-evangelical sects as instrument of public education heightened the ethical experience. a means of asserting their domi- "where the common school and The art consisted not only of the nance inthe world—ofdeath; here the ballot-box leave it,and raises up the lush pastoral-picturesque— design of Christian virtues "passivity, meek- working-man to the same level of the landscape the meandering ness, gentleness, reverence— for the enjoyment with the man of leisure paths anddrives,— ponds, trees, shrubs, past and for the weak" could be and accomplishment." 26 and flowers but of the funerary affirmed. 30 These sentiments were Downing's American model for sculpture. Proprietors competed to compatible with the mood of sweet the urban park was the rural ceme- erect architectonic memorials which, melancholy fostered by the cemeter- tery. By the 1840s ithad become among other things, testified to the ies. The cemeteries and consolation clear to him and others that the piety and status of their families. A literature also espoused a belief in worldofnature and art expressed in stroll through the romantic ceme- death as akin to a change in status the cemetery could be recreated in tery is akin to a kaleidoscope of and place rather than an eternal loss; the cities but without the dead, revival architecture— and ornamenta- the dead now resided in a new (and graves, and funeral processions. In- tioninsculpture classical, Gothic better) community which the living deed, from their inception with or Egyptian columns, obelisks, an- could visit. Mount Auburn in 1831 they had gels, temple-like mausoleums, An enlightened, rational elite in served as popular pleasure grounds sphinx, lotus flowers, and serpents. the nineteenth century rejected the in every community where they ex- It would surely contribute to the legacy of the graveyard as a place isted. Mount Auburn, among oth- elevation of taste in a democratic only a "step removed from Heaven, ers, became a mecca for foreign and republic. and half a step from Hell."31 The American visitors: The sculpture and tombstones rural cemetery they created was not withtheir inscriptions would accom- a place of terror, but a sanctuary in It became the favorite 'resort' for plish another purpose. They com- which livingand dead formed acom- both New Englanders and visi- memorated the patriots and civic munity. Atthe core of that commu- tors, whoread the monuments or leaders of the past. Contemplation nity was the family, "for the ceme- simply communed with nature. oftheir memorials and deeds would tery had become, inmany ways, the Couples frequented the cemetery link the generations and arouse in refuge of the psychologically over- for courtship walks, cultivating the living a spirit of pride in the burdened family; itwas, at last, the melancholy emotions by reading nation and community. The ceme- place where peace and calm would sentimental verses engraved on tery would thus be a force for civic be the rule, where the dissolving thestones.... Teachers urged youth —betterment. The community elites bonds of consanguinity would be to visitthe cemetery tolearn from — professional, business, educated ever strong." Itreflected "new emo- the exemplary lives of notables who created the rural cemetery tional sensibilities" including "the

152 Book Reviews

rise of affective individualism" and legheny Cemetery: ARomantic Land- well wonder which is better (except the "intensified cohesion of the nu- scape inPittsburgh was published by for one detail, to be sure). 32 clear family." The organization of- the Pittsburgh History &Landmarks An aerial color photograph on the cemetery testified to the central Foundation, thusacknowledging the page 21 illustrates the portion of ity of family in many ways. Itwas a Cemetery's claim to historic preser- Allegheny Cemetery known as the private, non-profit corporation vation status. 35 And one would hope "lawn-plan Gardens ofPeace and of which sold lots toindividual propri- that Kidney's volume would help Four Seasons." The lawn plan con- etors on behalf of the family unit. correct an historiographical lapse. cept of cemetery landscape design They defined their holdings with The extensive historical literature on superseded the picturesque format. iron railings or fences as well as the rural cemetery movement virtu- Itoriginated at Spring Grove Cem- funerary sculpture and plantings. ally ignores Allegheny Cemetery. 36 etery inCincinnati (the largest ofthe Families could anticipate an eternal The pictorial content ofAlleghe- rural cemeteries at some 730 acres). union inthe embrace ofnature and ny Cemetery is its great strength. Established in1844, itturned to the art. Every aspect of this lush world of lawn garden plan under the leader- The rural cemetery was a land of nature improved by art is covered: ship of Adolph Strauch, the Prus- nature and art, of ancestral memo- gatehouses and entrance towers at sian-born landscape gardener hired ries, patriotism and civic virtue, of Butler Street and Penn Avenue, ad- as superintendent in1855.The lawn romantic melancholy, sentimental- ministration and service buildings, plan, essentially, involved a thinning ism, religious piety and didactic landscape design, the astonishing out of the picturesque landscape: moralism and, not least, of the fam- funerary sculpture. There is also a ilyunited through eternity.33 Itwas, sectional map onpage 98, although, Strauch's plan turned away from in a fairly literal sense, a city of the surprisingly, no map of the ceme- the century-long fascination with dead which the living might emu- tery's location withinPittsburgh; this the picturesque, instead promot- late. The problem with the city of wouldhave been useful tonon-Pitts- ing the simplicityand accessibility commerce and industry was that it burgh residents. The last chapter, ofthe beautiful.... Instead ofdi- lacked the benign sensory stimuliof "AGuide to Allegheny Cemetery," verse settings, individualistic mon- the city of the dead, that union of comprises about one-third the en- uments and markers, and abun- nature and art which enhanced both tire book and is devoted toa section- dant plantings... Strauch's land- individual and civicprobity. The city by-section photographic survey of scape "exhibitedapreponderance of the living, to the contrary, pro- outstanding monuments along with ofgently flowinglines,roundness moted competition, aggression, text describing their inhabitants and and regularity, balance and sym- materialism, vice and crime, pover- features. It would be impossible, metry, perfection and repose." 37 ty,intemperance, and family disinte- even ifone never visited Allegheny gration. Itwould become a fitplace Cemetery, to peruse these pictures Exponents of the lawn plan had be- tolive and work only to the extent it come exasperated with the many emulated the environment and ide- "Anenlightened, fences, elaborate monuments and als of the cemetery. Municipal park lotholder autonomy, all of which advocacy such as Downing's repre- rational elite in the contributed toanindividualistic clut- sented an attempt toaccomplish this. ter and severe maintenance prob- It was an extraordinary moment in nineteenth century lems. The lawn plan, the triumph of American culture when the city of rejected the legacy the "beautiful" and pastoral over the the dead was acclaimed as the model picturesque, can be interpreted as a forthe cityofthe living.The rural or ofthe graveyard as thrust toward centralized, profes- romantic cemetery of 1830-1860 a sional management of the cemetery was surely one of the most unique a place only 'step as well as a design choice. Signifi- Utopias in western history. 34 removed from cantly, the Association ofAmerican Cemetery Superintendents was or- Allegheny Cemetery, one of the Heaven, and half a ganized inthe late 1880s. The rural first, largest, and grandest of the from Hell."' cemeteries contributed greatly tothe American gardens of the dead, thus step development oflandscape architec- represents one ofPittsburgh's most ture in the United States, providing significant cultural legacies. Asmuch without comprehending the power- employment opportunities for land- as architect H.H. Richardson's Al- fulsensual and emotional impact of scape gardeners or architects at an legheny County Courthouse and Jail theruralcemeteries. Contrasting that early date. or the Beaux-Arts architecture of world of art, nature, memory and One can hope that the lawnplan's Oakland's CivicCenter, itis a singu- commemoration inPittsburgh with "Gardens ofPeace" and "Four Sea- lar and irreplaceable civic treasure. the "real" world beyond its bound- sons" willnot expand beyond their Appropriately, Walter Kidney's Al- aries on Penn and Butler,one might present boundaries in Allegheny

153 Pittsburgh History, Fall1992

Cemetery. They have all the allure of coner emigrated totheUnited States know more about the character of a suburban lawn with ground level in1874. He would become superin- his reconstruction and, not less im- todesignate thelocation ofthe tendent of the Botanical Gardens at portant, what might have been lost slabs 39 dead. And the counterpart to the Harvard. Hisskillsimpressed Charles as aresult ofhispastoral alterations. tacky shoebox buildings which ooze A.Dana, publisher of the New York The contribution of Pittsburgh over the urban environment is Al- Sun, who chose him to manage his History &Landmarks Foundation legheny's Temple ofMemories. Kid- estate. He wrote extensively ongar- tothe well-being ofAllegheny Cem- ney generously describes this low- dening and established the maga- etery was not limited to Kidney's slung, flat-roofed chunk as done in zine Gardening. Edward Bigelow, book, a graphic landmark (ifsome- "simple style... more or less Classi- Pittsburgh's Director of Public what less as social and cultural histo- cal, outwardly faced in limestone Works and a park advocate, hired ry).PH&LFwas instrumental inthe withsome red granite detailing...." him as superintendent for Schenley creation ofthe Allegheny Cemetery However well itmight function as Park in1896. He soon became su- Historical Association in1980. Since an above ground burial facilityhous- perintendent ofthe city's entire park the cemetery could not accept foun- ing8,000 crypts, ithas the architec- system. Henry Phipps commissioned dation funds inlight ofits tax status, tural merit ofa K-Mart. him frequently to collect specimens Landmarks proposed a charitable Kidney's descriptive text focuses organization to act as the cemetery's onthe cemetery grounds, structures, However wellit restoration agent. Landmarks, Kid- maintenance and management. The ney notes, funneled the initial foun- text is not social or cultural history, might function as dation seed funds from the W.P. which would have called for explor- Snyder Charitable Foundation. ing the aspirations of the business an above ground Landmarks's chairman, Charles C. and professional elites who founded burial facility,the Arensberg, is vice-president of the the cemetery in1844, the origins of Historical Association, and Torrance the cemetery's design, and the cem- Temple of M.Hunt,Sr., a Landmarks and cem- etery's role incity life. But the text etery trustee, has served as chairman does contain much useful informa- Memories has the and president of the board of the tion about the worldwithin the 300 architectural merit Historical Association since its in- acres of grounds (ofwhich 200 are ception. Thus PH&LF's long-time improved, accommodating 117,000 ofa K-Mart. strategy of practical historic preser- dead). Among other things, Kidney vation willcontribute significantly discusses the contributions of the for the Phipps Conservatory, and he to the proper maintenance and sup- successive superintendents, the first exerted further influence inthe area portofPittsburgh's unique Victori- of whom was John Chislett (1800- as the landscape architect for estates an garden of the dead. \u25a0 69).We learn that he was anEnglish throughout Western Pennsylvania. architect, trained inBath, who had As superintendent of Allegheny 1TheNewHaven BuryingGround Cem- lived in Pittsburgh since the early Cemetery, Falconer wrenched itin etery of1796 (laterGrove Street Ceme- 1830s. His talents inthe Greek Re- the direction of thelawn plan. With- tery) was probably the first to deviate vival were revealed in the Bank of in 10 years, he had removed nearly significantly from the churchyard tradi- Pittsburgh (c.1835) and in a prede- eight miles of stone and ironfences, tion. It established the precedent of a cessor to Richardson's courthouse and three-quarters ofa mile ofhedg- private association to incorporate, ac- in 1841. Although Kidney notes es. He removed cobblestone and quire land, and prepare a plan. In this that Chislett was instructed to sur- gravel paths, converting them into case, it was a gridiron dividedintoparal- vey and design the grounds, and that lawns. Miles ofroadway were recon- lelograms with paths wide enough for his "careful planning and foresight structed and drained under his di- two carriages. Lombardy poplars lined formed the foundation for the rection;he developed a comprehen- the roadways. The driving force behind present beauty ofthe Cemetery," we sive water system and planted a for- the Cemetery was James Hillhouse, Con- do not learn anything about his de- est of trees and shrubs. 38 necticut congressman andsenator. Along sign and its origins. Whether this is Kidney observes that the ceme- withpublic health considerations, Hill- because the information— does not tery "owes much ofitsmodern char- house's "commitment to returning na- exist is not clear the book lacks acter to WilliamFalconer," and that ture to the lives of the city residents documentation of any kind. "his quarter-century ofadministra- helped motivate him...in the plan for a Somewhat frustrating also is the tion is stillremembered admiringly, new cemetery." David C. Sloane, The limited depiction of the key role of especially for its courageous attack Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries inAmer- William Falconer, superintendent oncurbs, fences, and other inconve- icanHistory(Baltimore, 1991 ).Sloane's from1903 to1928. AScotsman and niences left from the past." IfFal- volume isthe best general account ofthe agraduate ofthe Royal Horticultur- coner had such a critical impact on American cemetery as asocial and cultur- alSchool at Kew near London, Fal- the cemetery's design, one needs to al institution. Kenneth T. Jackson and

154 Book Reviews

Camilo Jose Vergara, Silent Cities: The (Carbondale, 111., 1957), 201, 202. See dens...." Quoted inJames Stevens Curl, Evolution oftheAmerican Cemetery(New also Samuel E. Monk, The Sublime: A The VictorianCelebration ofDeath^(De- York, 1989), is a splendid pictorialsur- Study ofCriticalTheories inXVIII-Cen- troit,1972), 55. Loudon, however, was vey withbriefbut informative text. turyEngland (New York, 1935). no advocate ofpicturesque cemeteries 2 Richard A. Etlin, The Architecture of 8 Hippie, The Beautiful, The Sublime, on the grounds that itencouraged their Death: The Transformation of theCeme- and the Picturesque, 238. use as pleasure grounds. He favored the tery inEighteenth Century Paris (Cam- 9 Brown's exemplification ofthe beauti- creation ofparks for that purpose and bridge, Mass., 1984). Although much ful,according to Clifford,involvedsparse "instead ofnaturalistic treatment ofthe acclaimed inthe early 19th century, Pere means and simple patterns: "contours of landscape he recommended greater for- Lachaise eventually suffered from the green turf, mirrors ofstill water, a few mality and restraint in planting." crowding ofgreenery by tombs, and the species oftree used singly orinclumps or Schuyler, "The Evolutionofthe Anglo- addition of some 40 acres of flatland inlooselycontrived belts —and that was American Rural Cemetery," 301. "divided into regular quadrants whose all."Clifford,A History ofGarden De- Schuyler suggests that Loudon's vigor- monotony onlyexacerbated the stultify- sign, 159. ous anti-naturalistic advocacy, his 1843 ing effects of the overcrowding in the 10 ArchibaldAlison,Essays on the Nature publication,On the Layingout.Planting rest of the cemetery. "(366, 367) andPrinciplesofTaste (Edinburgh, 1811, and Managing ofCemeteries and on the 3 Richard A.Etlin,"Landscapes ofEter- [orig.pub., 1790]), vol.1,8. Improvement of Churchyards, and his 11 Ibid., nity:Funerary Architecture andthe Cem- 4 LA,122:*.****,ILAA,440. design ofarectangular axialCambridge etery, 1793- 188 1,"Oppositions 8(Spring 12 Another exponent of the theory of cemetery contributed to the abandon- 1977), 18. "The new cemetery," Etlin subjective association based on sensory ment of the naturalistic stylein favor of suggests, "was not only asolution to the impression was Johann Georg von Zim- "utilitarian and geometric burial insalubrity oftraditional burial practic- mermann: "This tenet ofromantisicm grounds" inEngland. es... but itwas finallyto be—acultural and [sic], that landscape scenery would as- 14 John R. Stilgoe, Common Landscape social institutioninitself amuseum of suage grief and elevate the emotions, ofAmerica, 1580 to1845 (New Haven, great art...and at the same time, a school became a recurring theme among writ- Conn., 1982), 220, 221. Stilgoe notes ofvirtue, whose commemoration ofgreat ers describing the influence ofruralcem- that "everygraveyard... was intentional- achievements wouldinspire a responsive eteries." David Schuyler, "The Evolu- lychaotic, intentionally representative citizenry and whose environs were con- tionofthe Anglo-American RuralCem- of sudden pierces, stranglings, disor- ducive to the art of memory and con- etery: Landscape Architecture as Social ders, darkness, and horror."(227) templation. "(15-16) and Cultural History," Journal ofGar- 15 David E. Stannard, "The Brief,Senti- 4JacobStarobinski, "BuryingtheDead," den History4 (no.3), 294. mental Age of the Rural Cemetery," New YorkReview (Jan. 16, 1986), 18. 13 Oddly,the firstromantic English cem- American Heritage 39 (Aug./Sept., The second quotation isan observation etery, Kensal Green, northwest ofLon- 1979), 45; Jackson and Vergara, Silent by Mona Ozouf. don beyond Paddington, was inspired Cities, 11. 5 Edward Hyams, CapabilityBrown and by Pere Lachaise which, of course, had 16 Stannard, "The Brief, Sentimental Humphry Repton (New York, 1971 ),9. been inspired by English landscape de- Age ofthe Rural Cemetery," 43, 44. 6 Other advocates of a new landscape sign. The picturesque plan included a 17 Thomas Bender, "The 'Rural' Ceme- aesthetic included Richard Steele and circular drive "from which meandered tery Movement: Urban Travail and the Stephen Switzer. The latter, a gardener windingroads and paths." John Francis Appeal ofNature," NewEngland Quar- to the royal family, advocated design Marion, Famous and Curious Cemeter- terly47 (June 1974), 201, 203-4. irregularity in Iconographia Rustica ies:APictorial,Historical, and Anecdot- Bender pursued this counterpoint anal- (1716). Earlierinthe 18th century, ten- alViewofAmerican andEuropean Cem- ysis witha focus upon the experience of tative, limiteddepartures from the geo- eteries and the Famous and Infamous Lowell,Mass: "As urban growth forced metric style were attempted by SirJohn People Who are Buried There (New York, Lowell out of the interpretive frame- Vanbrugh (thearchitect withHenry Wise 1977), 19.Kensal Green was established work that blended art and nature to- at Blenheim on behalf of the Duke of in1831,the same year as Mount Auburn gether to the enhancement ofboth, a Malborough), and Charles Bridgeman. in Cambridge, Mass. The influential vision ofcity and country as distinct but See Hyams, Capability Brown and English landscape gardener, J.C. Loud- abutting each other emerged. By mid- Humphry Repton, 5-8; Edward Hyams, on, had proposed a year earlier in the century cityscape and landscape were The English Garden (New York),57-64; MorningAdvertiser that "there should treated as counterpoints. "(74) The Ar- Derek Clifford, A History of Garden be several burial-grounds, as far as prac- cadian or pastoral vision of a nation Design (New York, 1963), 129-30; ticable, equi-distant from each other, whichblended art, commerce, and na- Norman Newton, Design on the Land: and from what may be considered the ture in a single "middlescape" could no The Development ofLandscape Architec- centre ofthe metropolis; they be regu- longer be sustained. ture (Cnmbnd%z, Mass., 1971), 208ff. larlylaidout and planted withevery sort 18 NeilHarris, The Artist inAmerican 7 Walter John Hippie,Jr., The Beautiful, ofhardy trees and shrubs.... These [and Society: TheFormative Tears, 1790-1860 the Sublime, and the Picturesque inEigh- other burialgrounds] mightbe made, at (New York,1970, [orig. pub. 1966]), teenth Century British Aesthetic Theory no expense whatever, botanic gar- 196.

155 Pittsburgh History, Fall1992

19 Henry Winthrop Sargent, "Supple- a Hill:Landscapes ofMemory and Bos- tured the romantic sentimentality about death which sustained the rural ceme- ment" to Andrew Jackson Downing, A ton's Mount Auburn Cemetery^ (Colum- Treatise on the Theory and Practice of bus, 1989), 295. tery. Post-war municipal park systems Landscape Gardening, Adapted toNorth 28 A.J. Downing, "Public Cemeteries and other sources ofrecreation dimin- America; witha View tothe Improvement and Public Gardens," July 1849, in ished the appeal of the cemeteries as of'CountryResidences (NewYork,1859), Downing, RuralEssays, 159. Downing pleasure grounds. Science and secular- 569, 570. This isa facsimile ofthe sixth described the rise ofthe ruralcemeteries ism made it increasingly difficult to sus- edition reprinted byFunk and Wagnall as a remarkable illustration of public tainthe faithinthe after-life so central to (New York, 1967). Llewellyn Park is taste, considering that only 20 years the cemetery beliefinthe communion of also discussed in earlier one found nothing better than livingand dead. Christopher Tunnard, "The Romantic common graveyards overrun with high 35 The project received substantial sup- Suburb in America," Magazine ofArt grass, weeds and thistles. He was not port from Torrence M. Hunt, Sr., and 40 (May 1947), 184-7, and John W. impressed by the New Burying Ground was sponsored by the Hunt Founda- Reps, TheMakingofUrban America: A at New Haven, where "a few willow tions of Pittsburgh. Its photographer History ofCityPlanning in the United trees broke the monotony of the was Clyde Hare. State*r(Princeton, N.J., 1965), 339. scene."(154) 36 Even worse, Allegheny Cemetery was 20 John O.Simonds, "AnAppreciation," 29 Ibid.,183. never addressed by scholars in the pages in Downing, A Treatise on the Theory 30 Ann Douglas, "Heaven Our Home: of the Western Pennsylvania Historical and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Consolation Literature inthe Northern Magazine, recently superseded byPitts- IVC. UnitedStates, 1830-1880," inDavidE. burgh History. 21 Ibid.,48, 51. Downing asserted also Stannard, ed., Death inAmerica(Phila- 37 Sloane, The Last Great Necessity, 103. that certain universal qualities werecom- delphia, 1975), 51. 38 "Falconer: Horticulturist,Editor,Park mon to allstyles; these wereembodied in 31 Stilgoe, Common Landscape, 220. and Cemetery Executive," The Cemete- the principles of unity, harmony and 32 Stannard, "The Brief, Sentimental rian (1975), 26-32. This publication variety. He associated certain kinds of Age of the Rural Cemetery," 54; Lin- was brought to my attention byRobert architecture with the landscape of the den-Ward, Silent City on a Hill,192. Gangewere, editor of Carnegie Maga- beautiful or picturesque. The latter, for 33 In the case ofMount Auburn, the zine. example, wasbest expressed inthe Goth- rural cemetery was conceived also as a 39 Kidney, Allegheny Cemetery, 4, 54. I ic, Old English or Swiss cottage. The center forscientific horticulture. Instru- am informedbyProfessor Edward Mul- beautiful wouldbe compatible with an mental inits creation in 1831 was the ler at the University ofPittsburgh that Italian villa style.Thanks to Downing, Massachusetts HorticulturalSociety and the Olmsted firmprepared a 68 page "for the first time the average man be- its co-founder, Henry A.S. Dearborn. report for Allegheny Cemetery dated came interested inhis ownhome and its They expected that the cemetery would Dec. 28, 1901. Since Falconer became grounds as something which...could be include a section for an experimental superintendent in1903, the report might made beautiful and thereby enjoyable." garden which would"bolster the Amer- have influenced his reconstruction pro- George B.Tatus, "TheBeautiful and the ican agricultural economy." National- gram. Picturesque," American Quarterly 3 ism and scientific ideals thus influenced (Spring 1951), 50. the founders ofthe first rural cemetery. 22 AJ. Downing, A Treatise on the The- Within a short time, however, the plans Blackcoats among the ory and Practice ofLandscape Garden- fora horticultural sector were contested Delaware: David Zeisberger ing... (New York,1844, 2nd. ed.), 378. bythe lotproprietors, who favored more on the Ohio Frontier 23 A.J.Downing, "On theImprovement privacy,and the plan was abandoned by by Earl P. Olmstead of County Villages," 1849, June in 1835. Linden-Ward, Silent City on a Kent, Ohio:Kent State Press, 1991. Pp. Downing, Rural Essays (New York, Hill,174, 175, 184, 207, 209-11. By xviii,283. Introductions, illustrations, 1853), 230. the same author, see, "Strange but Gen- notes. $29, $17.50 paperback 24 A.J. Downing, "Our Country villag- teel Pleasure Grounds: Tourist and Lei- es," June 1850, in Rural Essays, 237, sure Uses ofNineteenth-Century Rural 238. Cemeteries," inRichard E.Meyer, ed., program among 25 mission A.J. Downing, "Editorial," TheHor- Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of Native Americans onthe ticulturistandJournal ofRural Artand American Culture (Ann Arbor, 1989), THEOhio frontier was among the Rural Taste 3 (Oct. 1848), 153-8; 293-328. The significance of Mount greatest challenges undertaken by Downing, "The London Parks," Sept. Auburn is examined inStanley French, the early Moravian Church inAmer- 1850, in Downing, Rural Essays, 548- "The Cemetery as a Cultural Institu- ica. In this book, Earl Olmstead 56. tion:The Establishment ofMount Au- provides a illuminating 26 careful and A.J.Downing,"TheNew-YorkPark," burn and the 'Rural Cemetery' Move- account of the life work of the best- Aug. 1851, in Downing, Rural Essays, ment," American Quarterly 26 (March known Moravian missionary, David 151,152. 1974), 37-59. Zeisberger, 27 and that ofhis assistant Blanche Linden-Ward, Silent Cityon 34 The CivilWar, withits carnage, punc- and successor, Benjamin Mortimer.

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