A01=Lynn Rainville
Albemarle County
antebellum
Author_Lynn Rainville
Avoca Slave Cemetery
Baptist
Brightberry Plantation and Slave Cemetery
Brown's Cove
Burton Family Cemetery
CarrFamily Cemetery
Category=JBCC
Category=JBSL
Catherine "Kitty" Foster
Cemetery
Charlottesville
Christianity
Civil War
culture
D.C.
Daughters of Zion Cemetery
descendants
documenting
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
genealogy
gravestones
interpreting
ivy motifs
J. F. Bell Funeral Home
Jim Crow
Katherine Lewis
Methodist
mortuary
Mount Fair Plantation and Slave Cemetery
Nathaniel "Link" Evans
National Park Service
National Register of Historic Places
OakwoodCemetery
Petersburg
plot markers
Presbyterian
Richmond
Rose Hill Church Cemetery
segregation
Solomon Family Cemetery
Sweet Briar College
University of Virginia
unmarked graves
Walnut Level Plantation and Slave
Washington
yucca
Zion Baptist Church and Cemetery
Product details
- ISBN 9780813938912
- Weight: 300g
- Dimensions: 149 x 226mm
- Publication Date: 08 Mar 2016
- Publisher: University of Virginia Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In Hidden History, Lynn Rainville travels through the forgotten African American cemeteries of central Virginia to recover information crucial to the stories of the black families who lived and worked there for over two hundred years. The subjects of Rainville’s research are not statesmen or plantation elites; they are hidden residents, people who are typically underrepresented in historical research but whose stories are essential for a complete understanding of our national past.
Rainville studied above-ground funerary remains in over 150 historic African American cemeteries to provide an overview of mortuary and funerary practices from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Combining historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives, she analyzes documents—such as wills, obituaries, and letters—as well as gravestones and graveside offerings. Rainville’s findings shed light on family genealogies, the rise and fall of segregation, and attitudes toward religion and death. As many of these cemeteries are either endangered or already destroyed, the book includes a discussion on the challenges of preservation and how the reader may visit, and help preserve, these valuable cultural assets.
Rainville studied above-ground funerary remains in over 150 historic African American cemeteries to provide an overview of mortuary and funerary practices from the late eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth. Combining historical, anthropological, and archaeological perspectives, she analyzes documents—such as wills, obituaries, and letters—as well as gravestones and graveside offerings. Rainville’s findings shed light on family genealogies, the rise and fall of segregation, and attitudes toward religion and death. As many of these cemeteries are either endangered or already destroyed, the book includes a discussion on the challenges of preservation and how the reader may visit, and help preserve, these valuable cultural assets.
Lynn Rainville is Research Professor in the Humanities at Sweet Briar College, USA, where she also serves as the Director of the Tusculum Institute.
