Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Expanding our Educational Outreach | Page 4

(Left and below) During the past several months, classes from a number
of schools visited the Cemetery, including the Atrium School in Wa-
tertown and the Shady Hill School, Haggerty School and Dragonfly
Afterschool Program, all from Cambridge. Photos by Jennifer Johnston
The new Center includes a reception desk manned with
staff or docents and offering interpretive materials and
publications for sale, a nine-minute introductory video,
freestanding and mounted display panels, and a resource
table. The exhibits were designed by the PRD Group of
Chantilly, VA, which has worked with the United States
Botanic Garden, the Smithsonian American Art Museum,
the Texas State History Museum, and other important cul-
tural organizations.
The Center can “dramatically increase visitors’ under-
standing of Mount Auburn,” says Director of Education &
Visitor Services Bree Harvey. “Opening the Visitors Center
is the next big step in continuing to expand our educa-
tional outreach to ‘students’ of all ages, from children in
school to adults who are lifelong learners. For years we and
others have known that Mount Auburn is an ideal setting
for experiential learning; the Visitors Center will help all
visitors learn more and gain a greater appreciation of what
is here.”
Janet Heywood, former Vice Presi-
dent of Interpretive Programs and the
principal instigator for the Center, says,
“It’s very exciting to finally have a wide
array of educational displays and mate-
rials available in Story Chapel for the
Cemetery’s many visitors. It’s gratify-
ing to think that we are continuing the
desires of the founders to create a ‘place
for the living’ to ‘teach the lessons of
history.’” Janet worked with President
Bill Clendaniel to make the Center a
reality, writing grants, doing research,
organizing roundtables with visiting
scholars, and selecting and working with
the exhibit designers. Bree emphasizes
that while we hope the Center’s materi-
als will be informative and interesting, “Janet always said
that its success would be measured by how much it en-
courages people to go outside and explore the landscape in
new ways. The heart of the exhibit is not in Story Chapel;
it’s out on the grounds.”
2 | Sweet Auburn
The Friends
has offered the
public a variety
of programs for
decades, but the
Center’s exhib-
its knit much
of this knowl-
edge together,
explaining how
the Cemetery
developed—and
how it reflects
changing views
about death, commemoration, religion, nature, community,
and individualism. The Center is the product of a great
deal of work by staff and two separate advisory commit-
tees of outside experts from the museum and public history
worlds. Funding for the project came from major planning
and implementation grants from the National Endowment
for the Humanities (NEH), and additional grants from the
Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, and the
Anthony J. and Mildred D. Ruggiero Memorial Trust. To
ready Story Chapel for its additional duties and “increased
traffic,” a handicapped-accessible rest room and air-condi-
tioning were added. All of the Center’s display panels and
new furniture—resource table, reception desk, and storage
cabinets—were meticulously designed
by PRD to complement Story Chapel’s
historic interior. Some of the furniture
is designed to move, allowing the area
where the exhibit is housed to be used
for seating, if necessary, for the funerals
and memorial services that will continue
to be held in Story Chapel. (The Visitors
Center will be closed when services take
place.)
The Center’s display panels discuss how
changes in taste changed the Mount Au-
burn landscape. For example, iron fencing
was used to delineate family lots only to
be replaced by granite curbing which
itself was eventually removed. The panels
detail how monuments were fashioned
from marble, granite and other materi-
als, and describe their evolving styles
and symbolism. The exhibit discusses how the Cemetery
acquired land during the late-19th and early-20th century
when formally trained urban planners, landscape designers
and architects replaced the gifted pioneers who had filled
those roles early in the Cemetery’s history. Bree points out