Grove Street Cemetery Bicentennial Symposium, May 1998

Grove Street Cemetery celebrated its bicentennial in 1997 with two events. The first was a commemorative ceremony, held October 19, 1997, which featured speakers and historical reenactors performing on the grounds. The second event was a three-day symposium held the following May at the New Haven Colony Historical Society (now the New Haven Museum) that focused on the cemetery’s past, present, and future. In addition to six sessions with presentations by scholars and cultural leaders, eight cemetery tours were offered to registrants, as well as performances by costumed actors interpreting the lives of nine people buried in the cemetery.

While the tours and performances were not recorded, the papers presented were captured on videotape, and those recordings are available to be viewed at the links below. Capsule biographies and topic outlines are available at each link.

It is interesting to note that of the seventeen speakers and commentators who participated, just four are still alive twenty years hence, and four speakers—Milton DeVane, Peter Dobkin Hall, Howard Lamar, and Judith Schiff—are now permanent residents of Grove Street Cemetery.

	Session One, Friday, May 1, 1998: Memorials in Stone Peter Dobkin Hall (1946-2015) spoke on the Thomas Phillips and Son Company, the most prominent stone carving firm in New Haven in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Hall held appointments at Wesleyan University (1974-1982), Yale University (1973-1999), and Harvard University (2000-2015). James A. Slater (1920-2008) was the commentator on Hall’s paper. Slater, an authority on colonial gravestones, taught at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, for several decades where he was head of the zoology and entomology departments.
	Luncheon Address, Friday, May 1, 1998 William Clendaniel, then president and chief executive officer of Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, spoke on the history of that cemetery. It is one of the most prominent Victorian rural cemeteries in the country and a leader in visitor outreach, programming, and preservation of archival records.
	Session Two, Friday, May 1, 1998: Women’s History Judith A. Schiff (1937-2022) spoke on women’s history as recorded in Grove Street Cemetery. Shiff was the chief research archivist at Yale University Library, and was a library staff member for more than fifty years. She was also a member of the cemetery’s Standing Committee of Proprietors and a founder of the Friends of the Grove Street Cemetery. Barbara Oberg (1942-2024) was the commentator on Schiff’s paper. A historian of early America and a scholar, she was editor of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin at Yale University (1986-1999) and editor of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson at Princeton University (1999-2014).
	Session Three, Saturday, May 2, 1998: Memorials in Prose Stanley E. Flink (1924-2022) spoke on changing styles and meanings in obituaries. He was a journalist and educator who worked for Life magazine, NBC news, and CBS news before becoming director of alumni communications and public information at Yale University in the 1970s. Joanne B. Freeman was the commentator on Flink’s paper. She is the Alan Boles, Class of 1929 Professor of History at Yale University, and specializes in the politics and political culture of the revolutionary and early national periods of American History.
	Session Four, Saturday, May 2, 1998: Science and Technology W. Jack Cunningham (1917-2004) spoke on science and technology in America as recorded in Grove Street Cemetery. Cunningham was on Yale University’s engineering faculty for more than four decades and published a history of the department in 1992. He gave tours of the notable people in science and engineering buried at Grove Street Cemetery; his scripts can be accessed here: https://www.grovestreetcemetery.org/explore/visiting/tours Brian J. Skinner (1928-2019) commented on Cunningham’s paper. Skinner was the Eugene Higgins Professor of Geology & Geophysics at Yale University, and the author or editor of more than thirty books in his discipline.
	Keynote Address, Saturday, May 2, 1998: Cemeteries in American History David C. Sloane is a professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis within the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He is also a leading expert on the history of mourning, commemoration, and public space, as well as contemporary thought on those topics.
	Session Five, Sunday, May 3, 1998: Cemeteries and War Howard R. Lamar (1923-2023) spoke on four Civil War heroes buried in Grove Street Cemetery. A long-time History Department faculty member and administrator at Yale University, Lamar also served as university president in the early 1990s, and was a member of the cemetery’s Standing Committee of Proprietors. Robert Leeney (1916-2008) was the commentator on Lamar’s paper. He was the editor of the New Haven Register.
	Session Six, Sunday, May 3, 1998: Cemeteries and American Culture: Past, Present, and Future This session was a panel discussion with seven participants: Milton P. DeVane (1929-2012) was the panel chair. He was a lawyer in New Haven and the secretary of the cemetery’s Standing Committee of Proprietors. Willian Clendaniel was the president and CEO of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also served as a founding member and chair of the Historic Cemeteries Alliance from 1995 to 2008. Shepherd Holcombe, Sr. (1921-2012) was a Hartford civic leader active in many of the city’s cultural organizations, including Spring Grove Cemetery. He served as president and chair of Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground Association. William N. Hosley, Jr. (1955-2025), a historian, preservationist, and curator, was the director of Connecticut Landmarks (1997-2004) and the New Haven Museum (2006-2009). He was the author of a book on the history and preservation of Hartford’s Ancient Burying Ground (1994). William McKinley Osborne (1929-2016) was a graduate of Yale University and a Cleveland businessman who served on the board of that city’s Lake View Cemetery. They were joined by speakers Judith A. Schiff and David C. Sloane.