American Studies Commons^™

Studying Socioeconomic Trends Through Cemetery Sales Records: A Case Study Of Greenwood Cemetery, Orlando, Florida, Victoria Abigail Kennedy Lawrence

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cemeteries are microcosms of society bound together in sacred spaces. As manifestations of social mores, cemeteries allow anthropologists to obtain information on social development and structure. Where noninvasive study is mandated, crucial methods of interpretation include studies of landscape design, floral incorporation, grave marker design and development, and grave mementos. This thesis discusses these and other methods as they are used to infer group mores. It also indicates how information acquired from methods can be adversely affected by outside influences, such as vandalism, weathering, and replotting. This thesis adds to known methods of cemetery research another unbiased, noninvasive tool that …