David Rumsey and his cartographically-minded colleagues have developed a number of excellent online collections of maps and other visual ephemera over the past few years, and this latest resource will be one that visitors will want to peruse at length. This particular collection contains over 13,500 images documenting the various sculptural elements on more than 9000 gravestones. Most of the gravestones available in this fine database were made prior to 1800, and most of them were created in the Northeastern United States. The original photographic archive was the brainchild of the late Daniel Farber, who worked with his wife, Jessie Lie Farber, to create the largest portion of this collection. Using the Insight Browser plugin, visitors can look at thousands of gravestones and examine them in great detail. The site also includes a detailed 42-page essay by Jessie Lie Farber that offers an introduction to early American gravestones, along with providing answers to a number of frequent queries about the stones such as What materials were used? and What is the current condition of the early stones?.
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