Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn and The Civil War | Page 17

People and Happenings
Grants Update
The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery receive d
a $40,000 grant from an anonymous foundation to support
the conservation of the Binney Monument and surrounding
lot landscaping. Mount Auburn is delighted that this long-
awaited conservation project was completed this summer.
The 19th-century marble memorial, carved by Thomas
Crawford in 1847, is the only monument at Mount Auburn
that has been designated an “American Treasure” by the
National Trust for Historic Preservation and the White
House Millennium Committee. Its conservation is
part of our two-year Significant Monument
Collection project.
A $9,000 grant from the Belmont
Savings Bank Foundation will support
the creation of a Family Field Guide,
Mount Auburn’s first publication about
natural history specifically created to educate
and engage elementary-aged children. The
Family Field Guide will be written and
illustrated by Claire Walker Leslie and will
highlight wildlife that can be found on the
Cemetery grounds at different seasons of the
year. It will contain pages for children to draw
and record their own observations about the natural
world, and will be available this spring.
The Friends of Mount Auburn was one of eight
national recipients of an Innovation Grant from the
National Trust for Historic Preservation. The $7,500 grant
provides partial funding for Mount Auburn staf f to test two
new computational photographic methods (Reflectance
Transformation Imaging and Photogrammetry) on historic
grave markers. This technology can enhance photographic
images in order to read faded inscriptions and reveal details
not visible to the naked eye, as well as to define parts of a
structure that are actively deteriorating. The project will
allow the Cemetery to assess the viability of employing
these new imaging techniques in the field for the efficient
documentation of large numbers of historic grave markers
and to share its experience and results with other stewards
of historic sites.
A grant of $106,720 from the A.J. & M.D. Ruggiero
Memorial Trust will support the initial phase of a
three-year project to create a multimedia interactive
visitors mobile app. This multi-platform people
and location finder will provide better access
to Mount Auburn Cemetery’s rich archive of
materials about the individuals buried and
commemorated at the Cemetery as well as
its notable horticultural, art, and architecture
collections.
With an $18,450 grant from the Stanley
Smith Horticultural Trust, Mount Auburn
will be able to purchase a new laser
engraver and efficiently produce
labeling for many of the plants on
our grounds. Completing the
labeling of our plant collections
will elevate our curatorial oversight and
provide visitors with more information about the
diversity of our plant collections. In addition, new
technologies will allow us to create special labels that relate
to our mobile tours, website and planned mobile app.
Mount Auburn staff, Trustees and
volunteers hosted the Massachusetts
Cultural Council on November 4, for
a site visit. Organizations, like the
Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery
who receive annual funding from the
MCC are required to host a site visit
every four years. The visit to Mount
Auburn included sessions about our
public programs, a walking tour focused
on our preservation activities, and a
special sneak preview of films by our
Artist-in-Residence, Roberto Mighty.
The site visit team included Anita
Walker, Executive Director and Kayln
King, Program Officer at the Mas-
sachusetts Cultural Council; Karen
Brown, Director of Performance Op-
erations at Celebrity Series of Boston,
Inc.; Jennifer Gross, Chief Curator at
the DeCordova Museum & Sculpture
Park; and Jason Weeks, Executive Di-
rector of the Cambridge Arts Council.
Winter 2015 | 15