During our exploration of the Calvary Cemetery a few weeks ago, we examined whether and how gravestone shape changed through time. But despite each group’s careful recording of shape data from across the cemetery, we quickly found that constructing a meaningful seriation was more or less impossible given the small (n=30) sample of gravestones. By combining class data on gravestone shape, I hoped we could turn individual failure into collective insight. Below I present the ARCHY 469 gravestone shape data in its (near) entirety. With a substantially increased (n=97) sample, distinct “battleship-shaped” curves are evident. (A higher resolution image of the graph can be seen here.)

A few words on methodology. I combined a few gravestone shape categories (e.g. horizontal slab and block) that appeared to be used differently between groups. I also omitted data from family plots. These were not only difficult to log (which gravestone goes with which person?), but also because families, I reasoned, may elect to use a single – and perhaps outmoded – gravestone type in order to preserve plot continuity through time. As such, this seriation presents only single gravemarkers, which should give us an in-depth look at the ways in which Seattleites memorialized deceased individuals over five-year periods between 1861-1865 (phase 1) and 2011-2015 (phase 31).

A number of obvious and interesting trends quickly stand out. The increasing and possibility decreasing popularity of horizontal slabs / blocks, the most frequent gravestone shape, is apparent. In fact, we may be witnessing the emergence of monuments or more unique (“other”) shapes as the preferred grave marker in lieu of relatively unadorned slabs / blocks.

Confirming my and other peoples’ observations, the use of particular gravestone shapes (obelisks, columns, pulpits) is confined to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Save one late 1980s outlier, the brief rise and fall in obelisk popularity is clearly depicted by this seriation.

I’m interested to hear what patterns others see in this seriation. Why do certain gravestone shapes, such as tablets and monuments, remain consistently popular through time? Would more data would alter this seriation? How so?

Nestled deep in the Calvary Cemetery in North Seattle is the gravestone of Helena Kelly.  Smile, we are told, to her memory and to the memory of the infant son who lies by her side.  Dedicated in 1889 the Calvary Cemetery reflects over a century’s worth of Seattle’s inhabitants.  But what do these graves tell about the people who lived here?  Can the inscriptions preserved within the boundaries reveal anything about gender roles?  The answer, as in the case of Helena Kelly, is clearly yes.  A clear pattern of acknowledging professional roles among men and domestic roles among women is evident in many of the graves we looked at. In fact, approximately a third of the graves display gender specific referencing; about 31% of the male graves indicated profession, and about 36% of the female graves indicated domestic status.

Specifically, of the 16 men listed in our survey, 5 referenced profession, and only one mentioned domestic status.  These graves acknowledged activities outside of the home that contributed to that individual’s experience.  They also reflect the mindset of those who are memorializing their loved one, and it speaks to how gender concepts inform decisions like epitaphs.  Clearly, professional status is considered an important enough factor to feature prominently on male gravestones.

Female graves, on the other hand, often describe their owner’s as “wife” or “mother”.  These domestic labels reflect a focus on familial roles, and say very little as to the other activities that these women inevitably engaged in.  Of the 11 women listed in our survey, there were no references to profession, and a total of 4 references to domestic status.  This starkly contrasts to what we saw reflected on male gravestones.  The way that these women are memorialized indicates something about their value in life; they were honored and revered as wives or mothers before they were acknowledged as anything outside of that narrative.

During our observation of the Calvary Cemetery, my team mainly noticed differences in gender between gravestones. As other people have mentioned, our sample size (N=33) was quite small to be making general conclusions, but from what we observed, men’s gravestones tended to be larger than the women’s. In the family plots we found, the male head of the house was given a larger gravestone than the women and his siblings or children. In cases of memorial stones over family plots, it was often the case that the patriarch’s name would be on the large memorial stone, while his family member’s names would be on footstones in the surrounding area. This reflects our society’s habit of valuing men over women. Gender inequality is also shown in the decoration and detail of gravestones at the cemetery. Often, the men’s graves were monuments or columns, more richly decorated than the women’s. It seems pretty cliché that the only conclusion I can try to make is one of gender inequality shown at a Catholic cemetery, but there you have it.

As my colleague noted, we discovered some interesting facts when we talked to cemetery staff; I learned about the Seattle flu epidemic that occurred in 1918-1919. Not being from Seattle, I don’t know anything about its history, so learning that prompted me to do a little side research into that time of history.

Another interesting thing we discovered was that there were ‘forgotten’ burials in a section of the cemetery, people who could not afford footstones or any other gravestones. These people were essentially forgotten by family and staff. One of the staff members recently recovered information on these people’s names and birth/death dates, and has had a memorial erected for all those people.

Memorial to the “forgotten” burials of the cemetery

I had never considered the amount of information that we can glean from a casual walk around the cemetery.

Our group decided to record our data using a custom webform through the free app, NestForms. It was super handy. I took about 20 minutes to set up the webform to match our paper forms, and I was really happy with the results. It was much easier to fill out a pre-designed form on a phone than worry about wind and rain destroying the papers. It even recorded our GPS coordinates. When we got home, printing out a database was literally 3 clicks. All of the data is saved in the cloud. Go technology!

We also decided to stop in and talk with the cemetery staff when we got to the site. Some interesting tidbits that we got from speaking with them:

• The Denny Regrade project of the early 20th century involved moving a cemetery. The catholics that were previously barried there, are now at the Calvary Cemetery.
• There was a flu epedemic in Seattle in the 1920s which accounts for a large portion of the cemeteries inhabitants. Particularly the graves of many young people.
• There was an entire section of burials that had been left unmarked. These were people who were unable to purchase large family plots due to unmarked graves. The Calvary Cemetery director recently created a monument for these people.
• Many of Seattle’s famous families have burials in the cemetery, including the Nordstroms.

As others have mentioned, our sample size was so small that it is probably wrong to draw any conclusions from our findings. Alas, I will do it anyway.

Our findings suggest that males may be more highly valued, as their graves were nearly three times as large as the women’s, 5.6 to 2.2 ft tall. This seems to be especially skewed in the family plots where a family patriarch has a large monument while his relatives have smaller graves surrounding it. We saw this several times throughout our survey.

We also found that marble is by far the most common material used, comprising almost 50% of the graves. Our findings suggest that the use of marble has diminished in the last three decades however. Whether this is due to market forces or a culturally driven change is unknown.

While an undoubtedly morbid thing to study, death and how culture handles death is an exceptionally interesting source of information about any culture. Using our recent Graveyard Lab and a chart of internments, we can see some very interesting information regarding the use of this specific cemetery, its growth and how these match up with events, both local and global.

This chart details the number of internments in five year increments from 1875 to 2010. In our collection we separated into each of the 5 primary areas of the cemetery and chose randomly 30 interments. What can be seen is that the period from 1900-1920 saw the largest spike of internments in the cemetery, followed by another increase in interments between 1936 and 1950. At first, I was tempted to believe that the first spike of internments was a result of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, until I noticed another spike at 2006 to 2010. The last spike, could be considered the Baby Boomer spike, a generationally motivated increase in interment, and upon closer inspection, the vast majority of internments between 1900 and 1920 take place before the pandemic would have occurred, leading me to believe that this increase in deaths is related to a post-Civil War baby boom, similar to the spike being witnessed in the modern era with the Boomer generation.
As for the 1936 to 1950 spike, I do not know of any regional, generational or cultural event that would culminate in this spike, and our data does not indicate that this is a group of soldiers who were interred in this period. It could be a result of the rationing and other life stressors that were occurring at this period due to American involvement in the war, but without further research, this question will remain unanswered.

From the survey of gravestones in Calvary cemetery, we found that there are some differences between men’s and women’s gravestone . In the early period (1880-1930), men’s gravestone has more diversity of shape than women’s, such as tablet, round column, pulpit, and obelisk. In the middle and late period, the common shapes of gravestone for both female and male are block and monument (see Graph1 and 2). About the materials, marble gravestones are more common in female group in the early period than male.

When we examine the seriation of gravestone shapes (see Graph3), we find that obelisk is an earlier common shape, and then it was replaced by monument and vertical slab. The block is the most common style from 1880 to most recent. On the other hand, from 1880 to 1920, there are many different kinds of gravestone shape. However, after 1920, the diversity of shapes is less than previous period. From 1930 to 2000, the common shapes are block, monument and vertical slab. After 1990, the recent popular shape of gravestone looks like s chair.

Based on this seriation, we know that the diversity of gravestone from 1880 to 1920 represents the men’s gravestone. And in the early period, the common obelisk style is only observed in male group in this case, which might indicate the different treatment to gender. After 1930, there is no big difference between female and male. This could be also observed from the kinship terms on the gravestone. In the early period, “father” is commonly appear in the male gravestone, but the kinship terms in female gravestone is “wife of…” instead of ”mother”. In the latter period, there is no obvious difference about kinship terms. This transformation might reflect the gender equality after 1930.

Graph1: shapes of female gravestone

https://app.box.com/s/sak6nkbcoyd7blgh208s

Graph2: shapes of male gravestone

https://app.box.com/s/0ghs9n7nezi8fd1zybrx

Graph3: shapes of gravestone in different periods

https://app.box.com/s/ykhi3bqlzqyarx6mxrob