Date Awarded
Spring 2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Department
Anthropology
Advisor
Neil Norman
Committee Member
Andrea Wright
Committee Member
Hannah Rosen
Abstract
This thesis examines a group of 114 burials found within the Terre Haute African Cemetery in Midlothian, Virginia, using gender and resistance as frameworks through which to understand the relationships that members of the historically Black Huguenot Spring community had with the American funeral industry as it developed parallel to the cemetery’s use history from roughly 1800 to 1934. The movement for the beautification of death and increasing emphasis on material goods for funerary commemoration beginning in the nineteenth century did not occur in a vacuum; this work explores the ways in which Huguenot Springs community members chose to participate and adapt these practices to their needs and economic context. This thesis is also interested in the legacies of historic African American cemeteries as sites for community memory, vindication, and the enactment of agency, both historically and today.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21220/qnp8-hc22
Rights
© The Author
Recommended Citation
Lewis, Annabelle Julia, "Seeing Community Values and Resistance in the Grave: Burial Practices at Terre Haute African Cemetery" (2022). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. William & Mary. Paper 1638386963.
https://doi.org/10.21220/qnp8-hc22
