Are you working on a research paper about Mount Auburn? Or, are you just interested in learning even more about the rich history of this place? There are several resources to further your understanding of Mount Auburn. Several are even available online!

Published Resources

We suggest you start any research about Mount Auburn with a few important works on the Cemetery:

Silent City on A Hill: Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemetery by Blanche M. G. Linden (University of Massachusetts Press in Association With the Library of American Landscape History, 2007) is the seminal work on the history of Mount Auburn. Copies are available for purchase in our store as well as at many other booksellers.

Jacob Bigelow’s History of Mount Auburn Cemetery (1860) is an account of the  Cemetery’s first few decades, as written by Mount Auburn’s principal founder, Dr. Jacob Bigelow. Reprints of Bigelow’s History are also available for purchase through our online store.

Mount Auburn’s award-winning Master Plan (1993) is considered to be an important work in the field of historic landscape preservation. The Master Plan, prepared by The Halvorson Company, Inc., has been published in two volumes: Volume I: Analysis & Recommendations and Volume II: Historic Landscape Report (written by Shary Page Berg).  Both volumes are available in PDF format on our website.

Download our Selected Bibliography for a more extensive list of published books and articles about Mount Auburn, the rural cemetery movement, funerary art and architecture, and 19th-century American landscape design.

Electronic Resources

Sweet Auburn, the magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn, includes articles about Mount Auburn’s history as well as its current practices and initiatives. Back issues of Sweet Auburn are available in PDF format in our online archive.

Mount Auburn was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 2003. Our NHL application is available as a PDF via the National Park Service.

The National Park Service Teaching With Historic Places lesson plan, Mount Auburn Cemetery: A New American Landscape, provides a basic but good overview of attitudes towards death and burial, and the founding of Mount Auburn.

Historic Resources Available Online

Some of the 19th-century publications and guidebooks written about Mount Auburn have been digitized and are now available electronically thanks to Google Books:

Bigelow, Jacob, “On the Burial of the Dead, and Mount Auburn Cemetery” from Modern Inquiries: Classical, Professional and Miscellaneous (1867)

Dearborn, Nathaniel, A Concise History of, and Guide Through Mount Auburn (1843)

Flagg, Wilson, Mount Auburn: Its Scenes, Its Beauties, Its Lessons (1861)

King, Moses, Handbook for Cambridge and Mount Auburn (1883)

Massachusetts Horticultural Society, “Mount Auburn Cemetery. Report of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society upon the establishment of an Experimental Garden and Cemetery. Boston. 1831” from The North American Review, Vol. XXXIII, October 1831.

Mount Auburn Cemetery, Catalogue of the Lots in Mount Auburn Cemetery with the names of Proprietors and Representatives of Deceased Proprietors; the Charter, By-laws, Etc. (1857)

Safford, William H., Mount Auburn Cemetery: Visitors Reference Book (1864)

Stevens, Levi, A Handbook for the Passengers over the Cambridge Railroad with a Description of Mount Auburn Cemetery (1858)