Crown Hill Speaker Series

The Crown Hill Speaker Series returns for the 2024-25 season. We will cover fascinating topics ranging from the city’s architecture and its tie to Crown Hill, to preparing for celebrity funerals, coffin hardware history, and how to establish your own rain garden. We will even host our first-ever intimate concert and storytelling inside the Gothic Chapel. You won’t want to miss these unique opportunities!

Coffin Hardware and Burial Identification: Case Studies from the Bethel Cemetery Relocation Project

Despite its immense potential for temporal, stylistic, and socioeconomic data, coffin hardware analyses have been inconsistently utilized in archaeological cemetery relocations. This is partially due to the dearth of primary resources for this particular type of material culture.
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Despite its immense potential for temporal, stylistic, and socioeconomic data, coffin hardware analyses have been inconsistently utilized in archaeological cemetery relocations. This is partially due to the dearth of primary resources for this particular type of material culture. However, the largest hurdle has been the lack of marked and robustly dated burials that provide archaeologists the context to better understand hardware usage through time. The Bethel Cemetery Relocation Project, which included over a hundred burials associated with extant grave markers, provided an opportunity for a more comprehensive analysis of coffin hardware types and stylistic trends, allowing the archaeological team to identify over a dozen unmarked internments. During this talk, Dr. Brooke Drew will discuss the different types of coffin hardware found at Bethel Cemetery, explain how she was able to identify and date them, and provide several case studies from the excavation.

Tickets:
- $10 per person
- Must be purchased in advance online
- NO tickets will be sold at the gate
Location: Gothic Chapel (enter the 34th Street Gate, 3402 Boulevard Place)

All children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
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Thursday, March 27

Resting Place: A Documentary Exploration of Time, Life, and Nature Featuring the Crown Hill Artists-in-Residence

Join us for an exclusive first look at Resting Place, an experimental documentary by Jessica Dunn and Michael Moskaliuk. Set within the tranquil environment of Crown Hill Cemetery, this project weaves together stop-motion animation, time-lapse photography, film, and original music to explore profound themes of time, life and death, and our deep connection with nature.
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Join us for an exclusive first look at Resting Place, an experimental documentary by Jessica Dunn and Michael Moskaliuk. Set within the tranquil environment of Crown Hill Cemetery, this project weaves together stop-motion animation, time-lapse photography, film, and original music to explore profound themes of time, life and death, and our deep connection with nature.

Although the documentary is still in production, this event offers the opportunity to experience the creative journey behind the film. Jessica and Michael will share insights into their artistic process, techniques, and the unique challenges they’ve faced in bringing this project to life. The evening will conclude with a Q&A session with the artists.

Be among the first to witness and gain a deeper understanding of the vision behind Resting Place.

Tickets:
- $10 per person
- Must be purchased in advance online
- NO tickets will be sold at the gate
Location: Gothic Chapel (enter the 34th Street Gate, 3402 Boulevard Place)

All children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
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Thursday, April 24

Destruction of the Steamboat Sultana

What connection does Crown Hill Cemetery have with the morning of April 27, 1865, and the explosion of the steamboat Sultana? Of the 2,000 Union soldiers released from the Confederate prisons of Andersonville, GA, and Cahaba, AL on board that day, two are buried in Crown Hill Cemetery.
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What connection does Crown Hill Cemetery have with the morning of April 27, 1865, and the explosion of the steamboat Sultana? Of the 2,000 Union soldiers released from the Confederate prisons of Andersonville, GA, and Cahaba, AL on board that day, two are buried in Crown Hill Cemetery. Come hear author Gene Eric Salecker tell the amazing story of the steamboat Sultana. This story includes greed and corruption in the overcrowding of a boat legally registered to carry only 376 people, and outright courage and survival among the many men, women, and children that were aboard the Sultana.

Tickets:
- $10 per person
- Must be purchased in advance online
- NO tickets will be sold at the gate
Location: Waiting Station (enter the 34th Street Gate, 3402 Boulevard Place)

All children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
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Tuesday, June 10