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"The Americanized Sphinx": Civil War Commemoration, Jacob Bigelow, and the Sphinx at Mount Auburn Cemetery

"The Americanized Sphinx": Civil War Commemoration, Jacob Bigelow, and the Sphinx at Mount Auburn... joy m. giguere Published in 1905, The New Mediterranean Traveller puzzled over a unique monument situated facing the chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts: "In one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the United States stands to-day, as a soldier's monument, the image of the youth-devouring female monster of the Grecian myth!"1 The monument referred to here is the Egyptian Revival Sphinx, and while having been available for public viewing for only thirty-three years, it had already become, much like its counterpart on the Giza Plateau, an enigma for many who saw it. At the time of its creation, however, the sculpture was far less inscrutable. Designed and paid for by Dr. Jacob Bigelow (1786­ 1879) and unveiled to the public with a small ceremony in 1872, the monument served to memorialize the "great events" that had taken place and to express gratitude to the soldiers who died, in Bigelow's words, "to achieve the greatest moral and social results of modern times." In short, like so many other monuments then being constructed throughout the North, the imposing Sphinx, having been "restore[d] for modern application," commemorated the two signal achievements of the Civil War: the preservation of http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Journal of the Civil War Era University of North Carolina Press

"The Americanized Sphinx": Civil War Commemoration, Jacob Bigelow, and the Sphinx at Mount Auburn Cemetery

Giguere, Joy M.
The Journal of the Civil War Era , Volume 3 (1) – Feb 13, 2013
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
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Copyright @ The University of North Carolina Press
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2159-9807
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Abstract

joy m. giguere Published in 1905, The New Mediterranean Traveller puzzled over a unique monument situated facing the chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts: "In one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the United States stands to-day, as a soldier's monument, the image of the youth-devouring female monster of the Grecian myth!"1 The monument referred to here is the Egyptian Revival Sphinx, and while having been available for public viewing for only thirty-three years, it had already become, much like its counterpart on the Giza Plateau, an enigma for many who saw it. At the time of its creation, however, the sculpture was far less inscrutable. Designed and paid for by Dr. Jacob Bigelow (1786­ 1879) and unveiled to the public with a small ceremony in 1872, the monument served to memorialize the "great events" that had taken place and to express gratitude to the soldiers who died, in Bigelow's words, "to achieve the greatest moral and social results of modern times." In short, like so many other monuments then being constructed throughout the North, the imposing Sphinx, having been "restore[d] for modern application," commemorated the two signal achievements of the Civil War: the preservation of

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The Journal of the Civil War Era – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Feb 13, 2013

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