CHICAGO – Graceland Cemetery and DePaul University are collaborating on a series of projects to educate visitors about the 164-year-old cemetery’s history. Funded by an over $198,000 grant from the
, DePaul faculty and students will create digital audio tours and exhibits in Graceland’s visitor center that highlight the cemetery’s most famous and lesser-known monuments on Chicago's North Side.
“The Donnelley Foundation understands that Graceland is a repository of hidden stories, both in their headstones and the documents they contain,” said Jane Baxter, professor of anthropology at DePaul. “This project can develop tools to help people connect deeper with those stories and enrich their experiences at Graceland.”
Baxter designed the two-year collaboration with Graceland to support community-engaged, project-based learning opportunities. DePaul faculty will propose and teach courses to bring insight into Graceland's unique archival collections through a particular disciplinary angle. Each class will culminate in students developing a public-facing project, such as an audio tour or exhibit, based on the focus of their class.
Misha Mikami earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from DePaul and is currently an intern at Graceland. (Photo by Keeton Holder/DePaul University)
DePaul alumna Misha Mikami is curating the first exhibit on the frequently visited grave of
Inez Clarke, a child at the center of ghost stories who passed away in 1880. Mikami earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from DePaul and is currently an intern at Graceland. She presented on the child’s actual life and the items people leave at her grave during the project launch event, “Offerings: A Year of Visitation to Inez Briggs” at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 in the chapel at Graceland, located at 4001 N. Clark St. in Chicago.
“People come to Graceland to see massive and famous monuments, including Inez, but there are also a lot of overlooked graves, like her family right next to her,” said Mikami. “There are so many interesting stories that build a grander narrative about what it meant to be a Chicagoan back then and what that says about Chicago today.”
Baxter will also speak at the launch event, commemorating children in American cemeteries. An expert on the archaeology of childhood, Baxter says Graceland and other cemeteries are places for both the living and the dead.
“Cemeteries were originally intended to also be parks for living people, but we’ve lost a lot of reasons to visit cemeteries,” Baxter said. “People are living longer, moving away from where their loved ones are buried, or consider cemeteries scary and unwelcoming. There was a resurgence in popularity during COVID because people were visiting to fill in their family histories or experience outdoor spaces. Finding ways to continue that is important.” Baxter will also create the first audio tour centered on the children of Graceland.
Each visitor center exhibit will use archives from Graceland’s collection, sharing hidden stories that a visitor may not discover on their own. Existing paper tour guides will be migrated into a digital format, making it easier for visitors to explore the grounds.
“We have been so impressed by the energy, passion, care and fresh perspective that our research intern, Misha, has brought to our organization,” said Stephanie Sloane, director of Graceland Cemetery. “We are deeply grateful that we will be able to deepen our relationship with DePaul and to continue sharing the many stories held within our historic institution thanks to the generous support from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation.”
At the event, Mikami launched a blog where she will share her research, making Briggs’ true story available online. She will also present her research at the
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in November.
To learn more about Graceland Cemetery, visit their
website.
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Media Contacts:
DePaul Newsroom
newsroom@depaul.edu
312-241-9856
Graceland Cemetery and Arboretum
info@gracelandcemetery.org
773-525-1105