Your final project should focus on Mt. Hope Cemetery. Building on your work in the cemetery and Project 1, select a plot, individual stone, or multiple stones, and analyze them in terms of their images and inscriptions. You may also choose to research recurring motifs, themes, inscriptions, and/or images (e.g., symbols of Freemasonry, Jewish imagery and inscriptions, flower symbols, etc.).  Be sure that your stone or theme has NOT been researched before, by searching Epitaph (see below) and previous essays written for this class found at: https://dspace.lib.rochester.edu/handle/1802/46

The assigned readings for this course should assist you in this project, though there are several other important sources that may be of use.  First, you will want to find the interment record for your subject, which will contain important information regarding age and cause of death, residence or place of death and location of the burial plot in Mt. Hope.  These essential records and how to use them may be found at Mt. Hope Interment Records.  Markers is the journal of the Association of Gravestone Studies published annually, and contains articles relevant to the study of common gravestone themes and images. Second is the publication of The Friends of Mt. Hope, a voluntary organization founded in 1980 to support the study and preservation of Rochester's historic rural cemetery. Today, this quarterly publication is entitled Epitaphs, though it was formerly published under the title Newsletter of the Friends of Mt. Hope.  No matter the title, all issues may be found on-line and in the Rare Book Room on the second floor of Rush Rhees Library, and each issue contains several short features on individual residents (e.g., Lillian Ward), gravestones, images, inscriptions, organizations (e.g., The Woodsmen Societies), and/or other pertinent subjects.  Other sources may be found in the University of Rochester Rare Book Room, and downtown at the Rundell/Bausch and Lomb Public Library Building of the Rochester Public Library.  Also consult "A Bibliography of Additional Sources", and Library Resources for this class.  Students should also consult the "Mt Hope Cemetery Interment Records" available on-line and on CD in the Multimedia Center, Rush Rhees Library G122.

Your essay should be between 7-15 double-spaced pages, with notes in the body of the text, e.g. (Wasserman, 25); a bibliography listing all sources should be placed at the end of the essay. A photograph or multiple photos should be included in the essay, and you may check out the digital camera from the department office (RR Lib 430) for this purpose.  I would also appreciate a disk version of your final, revised essay with photos (PDF or Html preferred).  Also take a moment to read the following instructions to assist the librarians in adding and indexing your article for the REL 167 web-site via the digital collection UR Research:

Speaking Stones papers in UR Research

It would be very helpful if the authors could provide:

1. The names, with birth and death dates and relationships, of the people discussed in most detail in the paper. If various other family members are mentioned briefly, for example, grandparents, children who died very young, etc., simply include a note “and other family members.” The detail is only for people discussed at length in the paper. E.g.:
John Smith (1824-1891), father
Mary Smith (1830-1861), mother
John Smith, Jr. (1850-1922), son
and other family members.

Please write out the full names in each case, even though it seems repetitive. (You may ask: “of course John Jr’s last name is also Smith, why write that out?” Answer: Because someone searching the Internet is going to put in “John Smith, Jr.” and you want him or her to connect with your work.)

2. Keywords representing topics that important in the paper. Information about the actual gravestone (carving, iconography, etc.) is fairly easy and quick for me to pick out, so you don’t need to do that.

3. A brief abstract of the paper. The standard template I developed starts with the following text:
Description and interpretation of the monument to ... , with details about [his/her/their] lives. Includes ...[names, dates, relationships].

Depending on the paper, sometimes the “monument” is no longer the focus. In that case, I might switch to verbiage such as “Description and history of the XYZ family. Includes…[names, etc.].”

For more examples, go to the Speaking Stones collection in UR Research: https://urresearch.rochester.edu/handle/1802/46 . The five latest submissions are listed under “Recent Submissions.” You can also Browse the Title Index (note it is divided up alphabetically); look at the submissions made in 2007.
 

A draft of your project is due in class on  November 3.  This will serve as the basis for your Power Point presentations, which will occur in class beginning on November 10. Your final essay with all revisions is due at the beginning of class on December 8.  Also, please e-mail me your final revised essay with photos as an attachment, so that I may add your final essay to the REL 167 web-site.