Silent City on a Hill

The group of prominent Bostonians who founded Mount Auburn in 1831 had many motives. Although their criticism of urban burials in the name of public health had been to no avail in obtaining public support, the removal of new burials from the center of the expanding city eliminated a particularly bothersome nuisance to real estate developers and urban boosters. By creating a picturesque "rural" cemetery within easy distance from the city center, Mount Auburn's founders solved an urban land use problem while establishing a multifunctional cultural institution where they could attempt to improve experimental horticulture, cultivate taste for fine art and architecture, and, most importantly, shape a usable past in the aesthetic terms then in international vogue. Silent City on a Hill traces Mount Auburn's inception, development, and influence on the urban cemetery and landscape movements, and its many illustrations show what the original visitors to the cemetery saw. Blanche Linden-Ward is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the American Culture and Communication Program at Emerson College.