Digging Up the Dead
A History of Notable American Reburials
With Digging Up the Dead, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Michael Kammen reveals a treasure trove of fascinating, surprising, and occasionally gruesome stories of exhumation and reburial throughout American history. Taking us to the contested grave sites of such figures as Sitting Bull, John Paul Jones, Frank Lloyd Wright, Daniel Boone, Jefferson Davis, and even Abraham Lincoln, Kammen explores how complicated interactions of regional pride, shifting reputations, and evolving burial practices led to public and often emotional battles over the final resting places of famous figures. Grave-robbing, skull-fondling, cases of mistaken identity, and the financial lures of cemetery tourism all come into play as Kammen delves deeply into this little-known—yet surprisingly persistent—aspect of American history.
Simultaneously insightful and interesting, masterly and macabre, Digging Up the Dead reminds us that the stories of American history don’t always end when the key players pass on. Rather, the battle—over reputations, interpretations, and, last but far from least, possession of the remains themselves—is often just beginning.
“A master historian and witty storyteller, Michael Kammen fully exploits the interpretive potential of his unlikely topic. Not only wonderfully readable, Digging up the Dead is rich in social and cultural insights.”—Paul S. Boyer, editor of The Oxford Companion to United States History
“Michael Kammen is a masterful storyteller. And here, from around the world but especially from the United States, he provides stories of exhumation and reburial—always singular and sometimes multiple. With Digging Up the Dead he offers compelling stories that provide us with windows into life, death, memory, honor, citizenship, and loyalty—to nation, section, family.”—Daniel Horowitz, author of Anxieties of Affluence
“Who is buried in Grant's Tomb? The answer to this old joke—and the story behind it—can be found in this well-written in-depth account of high-profile Americans whose remains were reburied for a number of surprising reasons. . . . While situating the ritual of reburial within the American psyche, Kammen effectively captures the eternal dual fascination with greatness and with the dead, and the power of their conjunction in the burial of heroes.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Kammen has a good sense of the details that make historical stories memorable. His occasional flashes of humor add a winsome, professionally geeky element to the telling.”—Dallas Morning News
“The entertaining, if not macabre premise of Michael Kammen’s new book is to explore how fluid final resting places may be. . . . As his drily witty book proves, fluctuating reputations and warring families have all played their part in ensuring that for the famous and infamous alike, there’s no such thing as resting in peace.”—Daily Telegraph (UK)
“This slender page-turner is a work of fact, a comprehensively researched work on a ghoulish and wonderfully weird subject: exhumation.”
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 A Short History of Reburial: Patterns of Change over Time
2 Heroes of the Revolution: The Siting and Reciting of Patriotism
3 Honor, Dishonor, and Issues of Reputation: From Sectionalism to Nationalism
4 Problematic Graves, Tourism, and the Wishes of Survivors
5 Disinterred by Devotion: Religion, Race, and Spiritual Repose
6 Repossessing the Dead Elsewhere in Our Time
Notes
Index
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