Day 1133: Why we have cemeteries

[eve_prime]

Why do we mostly have cemeteries in the United States, instead of churchyard burials as they traditionally did in Britain and the rest of Europe? I'd never given the matter any thought, but if I'd had to guess I might have come up with, land is cheaper on the edge of town, or in the U.S. we're more likely to have multiple churches in a given town, unlike Europe, where most people tended to belong to the same church.

Those could be factors, I suppose, but I've been reading a book about the Gettysburg Address, and today I learned why we have cemeteries. Early in the 19th century, Greece was in the news, in a way it hadn't been for a very long time - Greeks were fighting for their independence against the Ottoman Empire (the Turks). Even Lord Byron joined in to help. And having Greece in the news made many of the educated and powerful sentimental for ancient Greece, and apparently the rural cemetery is how the ancient Greeks did things.

So, starting around then, Americans copied the ancient Greeks, and it was a fad that stuck.

Got this post onto LJ last night before my internet failed; backdating it here.)

Comments

[kaishin108]

I have wondered that too! All these Old English movies and shows I watch and the graves are always on the church grounds. How interesting!

We have one here, a huge cemetery right in the middle of town and they are upzoning like crazy in Boise. I often imagine real estate developers driving by there and shaking their heads, LOL.

[eve_prime]

Ha! I bet it was not right in the middle of town 150 years ago... :)

We have a pioneer cemetery on the university campus and also a very pretty Masonic cemetery on a hill a half mile south of the university, surrounded by nice houses, that has lots of recognizable historic figures buried there, like Oregon's first territorial governor, Joseph Lane (as in Lane County). The rest of them are a lot more obviously intended to be at the edge of things (including three I can walk to from my house).

[kaishin108]

Right! Early on - it was the edge of town.
Wow, you can walk to three, that is something.

[eve_prime]

One's big and obvious, it's only a five-minute walk away. One's just a bit further south, so I'd say a 15-minute walk? Maybe 20? And then the Catholic cemetery is in the other direction, maybe 15-20 minutes away as well. They've all gradually become surrounded by houses, though they're all up in the hills.

[heleninwales]

That's really interesting. In the UK, a church burial was traditional and all old Anglican churches had a graveyard (or did have, some in city centres were taken for development). But from the 1600s onwards there was the growth of the Nonconformist denominations and their chapels often didn't have a graveyard. Also in the Victorian era, the population rapidly outgrew the small churchyards and so larger cemeteries were created on the outskirts of the city, though of course many later became surrounded by housing.

[eve_prime]

Yes, I am wondering what the Catholics and various Nonconformists in the UK did for that. If their graveyards were too obvious, they might end up vandalized, I am thinking.

[claidheamhmor]

I'd never thought about that! We mostly have cemeteries too, graveyards only in very old churches (and mostly Church of England, I suspect).

[eve_prime]

And we don't have graveyards at all, as far as I know.