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