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The speaking stone : stories cemeteries tell / Michael Griffith.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cincinnati : University of Cincinnati Press, 2021Copyright date: ©2021Description: vii, 241 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781947602304
  • 1947602306
Other title:
  • Stories cemeteries tell
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
A State of Ungress: Composing as Rambling -- The Absent Guest: Leon Van Loo -- Bake Visibly!: Ernst Huenefeld -- "A Great Awkward Bunglehood of Woman": Fanny Wright -- Interlude: The Bank-Shot Unmemoir -- "Death's Taxicab": Willard Hess and Martin Hale Crane -- Accidental Charon: Jacob Strader, Dred Scott, and Body-Snatching -- "Due Allowance for Foam": Martha McClellan Brown and the Ohio Women's Crusade -- "Another Well-Picked Skeleton": Homunculi, Mail-Order Tree Stumps, Petrified Logs, and the Many, Many Charles Millers -- Outlook Hazy: Laura Pruden, Harry Houdini, and Arthur Conan Doyle Interrogate the Spirits -- Ghosts of the Walldogs: Gus Holthaus -- Interlude: The Crypto Auto-Obituary -- "And They Did Kill Her by Inches": The Strange Case of Carrie Elder -- The Sculptor, His Son, the Odd Fellows, and the Weird Assassin: Louis Rebisso(s) and Oscar Mundhenk -- Six Degrees of Jonathan Cilley -- The Permeable Earth.
Summary: "The Speaking Stone: Stories Cemeteries Tell is a literary love letter to the joys of wandering graveyards and the discoveries such wanderings can yield. Here, Michael Griffith roams Spring Grove (founded 1844), the nation's third-largest cemetery, following curiosity and accident wherever they lead. The result is this fascinating collection, which narrates the lives of those he encountered on the way. Griffith lingers amidst the traces left behind-these are stories of race, feminism, art, and death-uncovered through obituaries, archival documents, and family legacies. Some essays focus on well-known figures like the feminist icon and freethinker Fanny Wright, but most chronicle the lives of lesser-known figures (a spiritual medium, a temperance advocate, the designers of caskets and hearses, the inventor of the glass-door oven) or of nearly unknown ones (a young heiress who died under mysterious circumstances, the daring sign-painters known as walldogs). The Speaking Stone examines what endures and what doesn't, reflecting on the vanity and poignancy of our attempts to leave monuments that last. Archival photos grace the pages of these thirteen essays that explore a larger, deeply tangled complex of ideas about place, history, self, and art"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 977.178 G854 Available 33111010498182
Adult Book Adult Book Northport Library NonFiction 977.178 G854 Available 33111009840253
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Speaking Stone: Stories Cemeteries Tell is a literary love letter to the joys of wandering graveyards and the discoveries such wanderings can yield. Here, Michael Griffith roams Spring Grove (founded 1844), the nation's third-largest cemetery, following curiosity and accident wherever they lead. The result is this fascinating collection, which narrates the lives of those he encountered on the way. Griffith lingers amidst the traces left behind--these are stories of race, feminism, art, and death, uncovered through obituaries, archival documents, and family legacies. Some essays focus on well-known figures like the feminist icon and freethinker Fanny Wright, but most chronicle the lives of lesser-known figures (a spiritual medium, a temperance advocate, the designers of caskets and hearses, the inventor of the glass-door oven) or of nearly unknown ones (a young heiress who died under mysterious circumstances, the daring sign-painters known as walldogs). The Speaking Stone examines what endures and what doesn't, reflecting on the vanity and poignancy of our attempts to leave monuments that last. Archival photos grace the pages of these thirteen essays that explore a larger, deeply tangled complex of ideas about place, history, self, and art.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-232) and index.

A State of Ungress: Composing as Rambling -- The Absent Guest: Leon Van Loo -- Bake Visibly!: Ernst Huenefeld -- "A Great Awkward Bunglehood of Woman": Fanny Wright -- Interlude: The Bank-Shot Unmemoir -- "Death's Taxicab": Willard Hess and Martin Hale Crane -- Accidental Charon: Jacob Strader, Dred Scott, and Body-Snatching -- "Due Allowance for Foam": Martha McClellan Brown and the Ohio Women's Crusade -- "Another Well-Picked Skeleton": Homunculi, Mail-Order Tree Stumps, Petrified Logs, and the Many, Many Charles Millers -- Outlook Hazy: Laura Pruden, Harry Houdini, and Arthur Conan Doyle Interrogate the Spirits -- Ghosts of the Walldogs: Gus Holthaus -- Interlude: The Crypto Auto-Obituary -- "And They Did Kill Her by Inches": The Strange Case of Carrie Elder -- The Sculptor, His Son, the Odd Fellows, and the Weird Assassin: Louis Rebisso(s) and Oscar Mundhenk -- Six Degrees of Jonathan Cilley -- The Permeable Earth.

"The Speaking Stone: Stories Cemeteries Tell is a literary love letter to the joys of wandering graveyards and the discoveries such wanderings can yield. Here, Michael Griffith roams Spring Grove (founded 1844), the nation's third-largest cemetery, following curiosity and accident wherever they lead. The result is this fascinating collection, which narrates the lives of those he encountered on the way. Griffith lingers amidst the traces left behind-these are stories of race, feminism, art, and death-uncovered through obituaries, archival documents, and family legacies. Some essays focus on well-known figures like the feminist icon and freethinker Fanny Wright, but most chronicle the lives of lesser-known figures (a spiritual medium, a temperance advocate, the designers of caskets and hearses, the inventor of the glass-door oven) or of nearly unknown ones (a young heiress who died under mysterious circumstances, the daring sign-painters known as walldogs). The Speaking Stone examines what endures and what doesn't, reflecting on the vanity and poignancy of our attempts to leave monuments that last. Archival photos grace the pages of these thirteen essays that explore a larger, deeply tangled complex of ideas about place, history, self, and art"-- Provided by publisher.

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