Lewisburg Cemetery Analysis

Humans are mistified by the unanswered questions about life after death. People crave immortality, yet everyone dies. Cemeteries memorialize death, making humans consider their mortality. Burial grounds serve as sacred places for people to mourn loved ones. In a constantly changing world, cemeteries provide a picture of the past, demonstrating cultural and religious views of death. The spatial arrangement of graves and headstones displays prejudices relating to socioeconomic class, gender, and race. The Lewisburg Cemetery presents an incite into the cultural relations and socioeconomic class dimensions in Union County since the Civil War.
When walking the grounds of the Lewisburg Cemetery, two distinct sections emerge: an older section closest

This is evident by the smaller tombstones, which are worn or falling apart. Although downhill is still categorized as family plots, the graves are more disorganized. Additionally, there are more children downhill. This could be due to the fact that poorer people had less access to medical care and that children were more likely to die at a young age due to illnesses or accidents. Some of the children’s gravesites fail to have a name on the stone, expressing the commonality of child deaths. Interestingly, the both sides of the older area shows gender bias as the gravestones for women show mother, wife, or daughter of instead of a specific name of the female. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, women had less rights than men and were considered bound to their male family members. The older section of the Lewisburg Cemetery illustrates the biases in the funeral

The grass is freshly cut and the grounds are well preserved. Less tree coverage helps provide a uniform layout. Since the funeral industry is a business, the grounds containing new burials gain highest priority in the effort to increase desirability. In the new section, the headstones of choice are mostly block or lawn-type, all of which are relatively the same size and style. This could indicate that the obelisk style monuments are no longer wanted or are too expensive for the families of the deceased. Since a burial is relatively expensive, most of the people being buried today are middle and upper class. Most poorer people are choosing cremation because it is a cheaper alternative. Furthermore, the plots in the new section are linearly designed, creating rows of headstones. Most of the headstones represent one or two graves, indicating a trend of couple or single parcels instead of family style plot. This suggests that in today’s society, people are less focused on family, which could derive from people having less kids. Also, most of the graves are for older people. For instance, due to the advancements in healthcare, people are living longer. In the new section, kids are memorialized, signifying the unexpected and tragic nature of the lost of a young person. Cemeteries represent numerous lives and memories commemorating their deaths in scenes of cultural and social