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America's Third Coast Series
Fragile Grounds: Louisiana's Endangered Cemeteries
Recipient of a 2018 Preserve Louisiana Award and a 2018 Coastal Stewardship Award
Fragile Grounds compiles stories and photographs of endangered cemeteries throughout Louisiana's coastal zone and beyond. These burial places link the fragile land to the frailty of the state's threatened community structures. The book highlights the state's vibrant diversity by showing its unique burial customs and traditions, while it also identifies the urgent need for ongoing documentation of cultural elements at risk.
Cemeteries associated with the culturally rich communities of Louisiana reflect the history and global settlement patterns of the state. Yet many are endangered due to recurring natural and man-made events. Nearly 80 percent of the nation's coastal land loss occurs in Louisiana. Coastal erosion, sinking land, flooding, storm surge, and sea-level rise have led to an inland migration that threatens to unravel the fabric of Louisiana and, by association, hastens the demise of its burial places.
As people are forced inland, migrants abandon, neglect, or often overlook cemeteries as part of the cultural landscape. In terms of erosion, when the land goes, the cemetery goes with it. Cemeteries fall prey to inland and coastal flooding. As cities grow outward, urban sprawl takes over the landscape. Cemeteries lose out to forces such as expansion, eminent domain, and urban neglect. Not only do cemeteries give comfort for the living, but they also serve as a vital link to the past. Once lost, that past cannot be recovered.
Fragile Grounds compiles stories and photographs of endangered cemeteries throughout Louisiana's coastal zone and beyond. These burial places link the fragile land to the frailty of the state's threatened community structures. The book highlights the state's vibrant diversity by showing its unique burial customs and traditions, while it also identifies the urgent need for ongoing documentation of cultural elements at risk.
Cemeteries associated with the culturally rich communities of Louisiana reflect the history and global settlement patterns of the state. Yet many are endangered due to recurring natural and man-made events. Nearly 80 percent of the nation's coastal land loss occurs in Louisiana. Coastal erosion, sinking land, flooding, storm surge, and sea-level rise have led to an inland migration that threatens to unravel the fabric of Louisiana and, by association, hastens the demise of its burial places.
As people are forced inland, migrants abandon, neglect, or often overlook cemeteries as part of the cultural landscape. In terms of erosion, when the land goes, the cemetery goes with it. Cemeteries fall prey to inland and coastal flooding. As cities grow outward, urban sprawl takes over the landscape. Cemeteries lose out to forces such as expansion, eminent domain, and urban neglect. Not only do cemeteries give comfort for the living, but they also serve as a vital link to the past. Once lost, that past cannot be recovered.
- GenresNonfiction
148 pages, Hardcover
Published September 22, 2017
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51 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 28, 2018
What an important topic for a book about cemeteries! Louisiana loses the an area the size of a football field every half an hour, as its coast is devoured by the sea. In the last 50 years, Louisiana has lost an average of 34 square miles per year. More than 500 cemeteries exist in Louisiana's coastal zone: last resting places of Native Americans, slaves and freemen, French, Spanish, Cajun, and more. The book does a good job of laying out the threats these cemeteries are facing, from salt intrusion to ground subsidence, flooding, hurricane damage, and being reclaimed by the ocean.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do such a great job describing what will be lost. The photos are simple snapshots, usually taken in the flat light of midday. For the most part, these aren't grand cemeteries with statuary or stained glass or famous names. This doesn't make them expendable, however. In fact, if the book had focused on the cemeteries, detailing their communities' history, it would have made a stronger case for saving them. Instead, each graveyard gets a scant handful of paragraphs jammed onto a single page with long captions and multiple little photographs. The layout allows the authors to cover a lot of ground, but I would have liked more depth.
Still, some of the photos are heartbreaking, showing vaults broken open by hurricanes or vandalism, coffins displaced by flooding, tombs sinking beneath the Gulf of Mexico. As the authors point out, "As humans, not only do we mourn the loss of our loved ones, but we also mourn our burial grounds....When those cemeteries left behind fall victim to natural and manmade devastation, such loss unravels the fabric of our history and renders it unrecoverable for future generations."
I'm glad the authors are drawing attention to the losses to come. I hope someone else will spend more time documenting exactly what will be lost and thereby preserve it for the future.
Unfortunately, it doesn't do such a great job describing what will be lost. The photos are simple snapshots, usually taken in the flat light of midday. For the most part, these aren't grand cemeteries with statuary or stained glass or famous names. This doesn't make them expendable, however. In fact, if the book had focused on the cemeteries, detailing their communities' history, it would have made a stronger case for saving them. Instead, each graveyard gets a scant handful of paragraphs jammed onto a single page with long captions and multiple little photographs. The layout allows the authors to cover a lot of ground, but I would have liked more depth.
Still, some of the photos are heartbreaking, showing vaults broken open by hurricanes or vandalism, coffins displaced by flooding, tombs sinking beneath the Gulf of Mexico. As the authors point out, "As humans, not only do we mourn the loss of our loved ones, but we also mourn our burial grounds....When those cemeteries left behind fall victim to natural and manmade devastation, such loss unravels the fabric of our history and renders it unrecoverable for future generations."
I'm glad the authors are drawing attention to the losses to come. I hope someone else will spend more time documenting exactly what will be lost and thereby preserve it for the future.
January 21, 2018
Fragile Ground is the story that is happening today, right now and sadly in the future.The book shows several cemeteries in Southeast Louisiana that are slowly being destroyed mostly by coastal erosion of the land. Pictures of some are documented so show the most damage, text discusses the cultural lost of the land and the people who struggle to live. Eighty percent of coastal erosion in the U.S. is in the Southeast portion of the state.
It might surprise some that even the cemeteries in the Greater New Orleans area have fallen into disrepair as well. St. Louis Cemeteries I,II,& III. Even Metairie Cemetery in Jefferson Parish has its problems too. There is a Save Our Cemeteries organization around the city, which attempts to save some tombs. But its and ongoing battle.
Highly Recommended
It might surprise some that even the cemeteries in the Greater New Orleans area have fallen into disrepair as well. St. Louis Cemeteries I,II,& III. Even Metairie Cemetery in Jefferson Parish has its problems too. There is a Save Our Cemeteries organization around the city, which attempts to save some tombs. But its and ongoing battle.
Highly Recommended
June 24, 2021
Recipient of a 2018 Preserve Louisiana Award and a 2018 Coastal Stewardship Award.
Fragile Grounds is a work of groundbreaking research that places the state’s cemeteries in a new perspective as climate change and population shifts threaten the most vulnerable of our cultural resources.
- Charles J. Pellegrin, Northwestern State University, Louisiana History
Louisiana's coast line is disappearing at an astonishing rate, and while the economic and political toll this is taking and will take on the living is often discussed, its implications for the dead are not even an afterthought. Here, the authors give us pause to think about coastal erosion's ramifications on historic cemeteries in the area. Fragile Grounds is timely, on target, and unique.
- Marc R. Matrana, author of Lost Plantation: The Rise and Fall of Seven Oaks and Lost Plantations of the South
Fragile Grounds is a work of groundbreaking research that places the state’s cemeteries in a new perspective as climate change and population shifts threaten the most vulnerable of our cultural resources.
- Charles J. Pellegrin, Northwestern State University, Louisiana History
Louisiana's coast line is disappearing at an astonishing rate, and while the economic and political toll this is taking and will take on the living is often discussed, its implications for the dead are not even an afterthought. Here, the authors give us pause to think about coastal erosion's ramifications on historic cemeteries in the area. Fragile Grounds is timely, on target, and unique.
- Marc R. Matrana, author of Lost Plantation: The Rise and Fall of Seven Oaks and Lost Plantations of the South
September 17, 2018
Fascinating. Well organized. Great photos and text. Making me curious enough to want to visit some of the cemeteries nearby and afar in my new home state. Loved learning that the law/need for below ground burials is all myth.
June 12, 2021
A good book documenting cemeteries that are in danger in Louisiana. It is not a novel nor a textbook. We’re all just gonna float away.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews