The District’s Departed

The definitive guidebook to celebrated and obscure cemeteries in and around the nation’s capital

Perfect for the “tombstone tourist,” this guidebook to eleven cemeteries in and around the District of Columbia offers informative walking tours of these places of repose and reflection, mapping each cemetery’s distinct character derived from the landscape, the local community, and the historical era in which it was established, and showcasing exquisite artistic and architectural styles.

Kim Roberts Meikle notes how the purposes these cemeteries were designed to serve are interwoven with our histories of race, class, religion, and military service. Tours include Arlington National Cemetery, with its rigid formats for design reflective of a shifting understanding of public memorialization after the ravages of the Civil War; historically Black cemeteries such as Mt. Zion Methodist, where those frequently excluded from municipal or private cemeteries were laid to rest and lovingly remembered; and cemeteries notable for their magnificent funerary art such as Oak Hill and Rock Creek. With these engagingly written walking tours, Meikle vividly shows what the living can learn from the dead.