Related

• - Browse neighboring items by call number.
• Collection: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey

• Title: Woodlands Cemetery, 4000 Woodlands Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA
• Creator(s): Historic American Landscapes Survey, creator
• Related Names:
     Arzola, Robert R. , project manager
     Lavoie, Catherine C. , project manager
     Jacobs, James A. , project assistant
     Wunsch, Aaron V. , historian
     Elliott, Joseph E. B. , photographer
     Rosenthal, James W. , photographer
     Boucher, Jack E. , photographer
     Gunderson, Courtney L. , delineator
     Knoerl, John , field team
     McCarthy, Deidre , field team
     Davidson, Lisa Pfueller , field team
     The Woodlands Cemetery Company , sponsor
     The Woodlands Trust for Historic Preservation , sponsor
• Date Created/Published: Documentation compiled after 2000
• Medium: Photo(s): 59
  Color Transparencies: 6
  Measured Drawing(s): 8
  Data Page(s): 180
  Photo Caption Page(s): 8
• Reproduction Number: ---
• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. (http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html)
  
• Call Number: HALS PA-5
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
• Notes:
  • See also HABS No. PA-1125 and PA-1125-A for related documentation on The Woodlands & The Woodlands, Stable-Carriage House. Additional documentation includes measured drawings, photographs, & written data.
  • Significance: Philadelphia's Woodlands Cemetery occupies the grounds of an estate recognized throughout post-Revolutionary America as a leading example of English taste in architecture and landscape gardening. This was William Hamilton's Woodlands, formed in the late eighteenth century on the low bluff where Mill Creek, now buried, meets the Schuylkill River. The mansion, a National Historic Landmark, has long been the subject of scholarly inquiry. Serious study of the building's environs is more recent. The Woodlands today is an amalgam, reworked over time for individual and institutional uses. During the late-eighteenth century, eminent botanist and plant collector William Hamilton (1745-1813) made the property a New World model of contemporary English gardening techniques. Employing principles advanced by Lancelot Brown, Thomas Whately, and nurserymen such as Nathanial Swinden, he created an elaborate tableau that Thomas Jefferson called "the only rival which I have known in America to what may be seen in England." Some forty years after Jefferson's compliment, the estate underwent a second transformation at the hands of the Woodlands Cemetery Company. Founded in 1840, this venture set out to remake Hamilton's estate in the form of a new metropolitan amenity known as a rural cemetery. Local and national precedent existed for such a project. Like Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1831), Woodlands offered private burial plots in a Romantic riverside setting. Still more like Philadelphia'’s Laurel Hill (1836), the new cemetery occupied the grounds of a former country seat and was administered by a business corporation. But The Woodlands made its own, distinctive contribution to the rural cemetery movement. Aware of the property's history, dramatic topography and proximity to the city, the company's projectors set out to create a landscape as appealing for its genteel associations as for its natural beauty. Hamilton's mansion and aged trees held special significance for lawyer Eli K. Price. As the cemetery’s leading advocate and principal public face, he argued that the institution not only met the sanitary, aesthetic, and emotional needs of Philadelphia but also served as the steward of a hallowed place. In time, similar ideas would prove crucial to the establishment of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. Given Price's central role in that undertaking and his other contributions to public horticulture, The Woodlands arguably emerges as the microcosm of a popularizing process at work in the American landscape. Conceived as a private estate in high English style, it became widely accessible as a sort of proto-park and helped incubate an institution that was truly public in nature. This, at least, is the prevailing interpretation of the site's historical significance. While there is evidence to support such claims, recent research may help relocate Woodland Cemetery within the more private economy of mid-nineteenth-century real estate development.
  • Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N8
  • Survey number: HALS PA-5
  • National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 67000022
• Subjects:
  • cemeteries
• Place:
  • Pennsylvania--Philadelphia County--Philadelphia
• Latitude/Longitude: 39.945677, -75.203675
• Collections:
  • Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey
• Part of: Historic American Landscapes Survey (Library of Congress)
• Bookmark This Record:
     https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/pa4013/

The Library of Congress generally does not own rights to material in its collections and, therefore, cannot grant or deny permission to publish or otherwise distribute the material. For further rights information, see "Rights Information" below and the Rights and Restrictions Information page ( https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/rights.html ).

• Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government; images copied from other sources may be restricted. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/114_habs.html
• Reproduction Number: ---
• Call Number: HALS PA-5
• Medium: Photo(s): 59
  Color Transparencies: 6
  Measured Drawing(s): 8
  Data Page(s): 180
  Photo Caption Page(s): 8

If Digital Images Are Displaying

You can download online images yourself. Alternatively, you can purchase copies of various types through Library of Congress Duplication Services.

HABS/HAER/HALS materials have generally been scanned at high resolution that is suitable for most publication purposes (see Digitizing the Collection for further details about the digital images).

• Photographs--All photographs are printed from digital files to preserve the fragile originals.
• Make note of the Call Number and Item Number that appear under the photograph in the multiple-image display (e.g., HAER, NY,52-BRIG,4-2).
• If possible, include a printout of the photograph.
• Drawings--All drawings are printed from digital files to preserve the fragile originals.
• Make note of the Survey Number (e.g., HAER NY - 143) and Sheet Number (e.g., "Sheet 1 of 4"), which appear on the edge of the drawing. (NOTE: These numbers are visible in the Tiff "Reference Image" display.)
• If possible, include a printout of the drawing.
• Data Pages
• Make note of the Call Number in the catalog record.

If Digital Images Are Not Displaying

In the rare case that a digital image for HABS/HAER/HALS documentation is not displaying online, select images for reproduction through one of these methods:

• Visit the Prints & Photographs Reading Room and request to view the group (general information about service in the reading room is available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/info/001_ref.html). It is best to contact reference staff in advance (see: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/address.html) to make sure the material is on site. OR
• P&P reading room staff can provide up to 15 quick copies of items per calendar year (many original items in the holdings are too old or fragile to make such copies, but generally HABS/HAER/HALS materials are in good enough condition to be placed on photocopy machines). For assistance, see our Ask a Librarian page OR
• Hire a freelance researcher to do further selection for you (a list of researchers in available at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/resource/013_pic.html).
• You can purchase copies of various types, including quick copies, through Library of Congress Duplication Services (price lists, contact information, and order forms for Library of Congress Duplication Services are available on the Duplication Services Web site):
• Make note of the Call Number listed above.
• Look at the Medium field above. If it lists more than one item:
• The entire group can be ordered as photocopies or high-quality copies.
• All the items in a particular medium (e.g., all drawings, all photographs) can be ordered as photocopies or high-quality copies.

• Call Number: HALS PA-5
• Medium: Photo(s): 59
  Color Transparencies: 6
  Measured Drawing(s): 8
  Data Page(s): 180
  Photo Caption Page(s): 8

Please use the following steps to determine whether you need to fill out a call slip in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room to view the original item(s). In some cases, a surrogate (substitute image) is available, often in the form of a digital image, a copy print, or microfilm.

1. Is the item digitized? (A thumbnail (small) image will be visible on the left.)

   • Yes, the item is digitized. Please use the digital image in preference to requesting the original. All images can be viewed at a large size when you are in any reading room at the Library of Congress. In some cases, only thumbnail (small) images are available when you are outside the Library of Congress because the item is rights restricted or has not been evaluated for rights restrictions.

     As a preservation measure, we generally do not serve an original item when a digital image is available. If you have a compelling reason to see the original, consult with a reference librarian. (Sometimes, the original is simply too fragile to serve. For example, glass and film photographic negatives are particularly subject to damage. They are also easier to see online where they are presented as positive images.)

   • No, the item is not digitized. Please go to #2.

2. Do the Access Advisory or Call Number fields above indicate that a non-digital surrogate exists, such as microfilm or copy prints?

   • Yes, another surrogate exists. Reference staff can direct you to this surrogate.

   • No, another surrogate does not exist. Please go to #3.

3. If you do not see a thumbnail image or a reference to another surrogate, please fill out a call slip in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room. In many cases, the originals can be served in a few minutes. Other materials require appointments for later the same day or in the future. Reference staff can advise you in both how to fill out a call slip and when the item can be served.

To contact Reference staff in the Prints and Photographs Reading Room, please use our Ask A Librarian service or call the reading room between 8:30 and 5:00 at 202-707-6394, and Press 3.