History
Mount Auburn Cemetery was the expression of a new idea.
Before 1831, most Americans were buried in isolated plots or in crowded town graveyards. Mount Auburn's founders had a new vision. They designed a tranquil, natural setting, well outside the city, to bury and commemorate the dead and to inspire and comfort the living. This principle continues to guide the Cemetery's management and use today.
Over time, Mount Auburn responded to changing ideas about burial, mourning, and even death itself. The Cemetery's landscape illustrates customs in American society over nearly two centuries.
Our Historic Eras
The Founding
Members of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society founded Mount Auburn in 1831. The Cemetery was the first in North America to combine these features:
- Large scale
- Designed landscape
- Open to the public
- Outside the city
- Permanent family lots
- Established as a nonprofit organization
Mount Auburn’s concept of permanent family lots in a setting of natural beauty was immediately popular.
1830s - 1850s
The design of Mount Auburn in this early period reflected a romanticized view of death. The Cemetery’s founders wanted to create a balance between nature and art. They saw it as a place to console and inspire the public and encourage a healing connection with nature.
The early landscape retained the original natural contours of hills, valleys, and ponds. Trees covered much of the site. In this era, when few cities had public parks or museums, Mount Auburn served as a park and a “museum without walls.”
1870s - 1920s
In the decades after the Civil War, ideas about death and burial grew less sentimental. Mount Auburn reflected this trend. The earlier emphasis on balancing art and nature shifted to greater simplicity, economy, and uniformity in the Cemetery’s appearance.
Starting in the 1870s, a professional staff began developing the area south of Washington Tower as a “landscape lawn.” Family lots shared grassy lawns accented by a few prominent points of interest. The Cemetery also began regulating memorials. The result was an open, park-like landscape.
1930s - 1990s
The modern concept of a memorial park reflects 20th-century changes in attitudes about death and in our society itself. American society became more secular and families smaller. Members were less likely to live, die, and be buried together. The public wanted interment spaces for one or two graves, not complete family lots.
Mount Auburn responded by developing Willow Pond, an area that resembles a public park. No above-ground memorials are allowed. Instead of grand monuments to families or individuals, the area features wide expanses of lawn and gardens, grave markers flush with the ground, and works of art commissioned by the Cemetery.
The Present
Mount Auburn’s mission today remains the same as on the day of its founding: to offer a dignified, beautiful, and tranquil setting for the burial and commemoration of the dead and give comfort and inspiration to the living.
While preserving and enhancing the Cemetery’s natural and cultural resources, the Cemetery continues to provide cemetery services to its clients and interprets its story for visitors. Mount Auburn continues to carry out its diverse responsibilities as a nonprofit cemetery, museum and sculpture garden, arboretum, wildlife sanctuary, and historic site.
For Further Reading
The Founding
Mount Auburn’s founding in 1831 transformed the way Americans commemorated and buried their dead. The Consecration Address of Joseph Story, Mount Auburn’s first president, outlines this bold new vision.
