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The Marble City: A Photographic Tour of Knoxville’s Graveyards
They can be as elaborate as ornate statuary from the Victorian era or as simple as plain stones placed over fallen soldiers. They might be tucked away in quiet corners of the county or rest in the shadows of the city’s tallest buildings. They are the grave markers of Knoxville's dead, and they hold an unturned key to this East Tennessee community's past.
In this new book, Jack Neely and Aaron Jay take the reader on a tour through Knoxville’s graveyards—a photographic and historic sampling of more than forty cemeteries in Knox County. In words and pictures, Neely and Jay record the handiwork of the stonecutter, the provocative environments of gravesites, and the colorful lives of the people buried there.
Wandering from small family graveyards to large institutional cemeteries, Neely writes with a graceful style and a respect for the past while Jay’s photographs capture the mood of the stones, sculptures, and design of grave markers. They lead us to the last resting places of a Supreme Court justice, a Grand Prix racing champion, a presidential nominee, and a great blues singer, showing how the lives of these prominent figures often attain added significance by their tombstones, which reveal the diverse burial customs of Knoxville’s citizens.
The Marble City invites us to view cemeteries as a means of appreciating an American city’s cultural diversity and the many roles its citizens played in the earliest marked burials in the county date from George Washington’s day, and in these quiet acres Confederates lie within whispering distance of Union dead. As the book shows us, each statue and marker has a story to tell. Slaves and slaveholders, professors and paupers, veterans of every war America has fought—Neely and Jay read the history of America in Knoxville graveyards and show that monuments to the dead can still inspire the living.
The Jack Neely, a columnist for the Knoxville weekly newspaper MetroPulse, is the author of Knoxville’s Secret History. His writing has won awards from both the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Aaron Jay is an award-winning photographer who has worked in both fashion photography and photojournalism. He presently works for MetroPulse.
In this new book, Jack Neely and Aaron Jay take the reader on a tour through Knoxville’s graveyards—a photographic and historic sampling of more than forty cemeteries in Knox County. In words and pictures, Neely and Jay record the handiwork of the stonecutter, the provocative environments of gravesites, and the colorful lives of the people buried there.
Wandering from small family graveyards to large institutional cemeteries, Neely writes with a graceful style and a respect for the past while Jay’s photographs capture the mood of the stones, sculptures, and design of grave markers. They lead us to the last resting places of a Supreme Court justice, a Grand Prix racing champion, a presidential nominee, and a great blues singer, showing how the lives of these prominent figures often attain added significance by their tombstones, which reveal the diverse burial customs of Knoxville’s citizens.
The Marble City invites us to view cemeteries as a means of appreciating an American city’s cultural diversity and the many roles its citizens played in the earliest marked burials in the county date from George Washington’s day, and in these quiet acres Confederates lie within whispering distance of Union dead. As the book shows us, each statue and marker has a story to tell. Slaves and slaveholders, professors and paupers, veterans of every war America has fought—Neely and Jay read the history of America in Knoxville graveyards and show that monuments to the dead can still inspire the living.
The Jack Neely, a columnist for the Knoxville weekly newspaper MetroPulse, is the author of Knoxville’s Secret History. His writing has won awards from both the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Society of Professional Journalists.
Aaron Jay is an award-winning photographer who has worked in both fashion photography and photojournalism. He presently works for MetroPulse.
76 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1999
15 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 21, 2018
Knoxville is the third-largest city in Tennessee, best known now as a college town. Originally it served as the frontier capital of the Southwestern Territory. At least two of its prehistoric Native American burial mounds still survive, relics of a civilization so old that it was a mystery to the Cherokee when white settlers arrived in the 1790s.
Knoxville was the most bitterly divided city in America during the Civil War. It's also site of one of the earliest national cemeteries, burial ground of Union men who died during the weeks-long campaign in East Tennessee.
Knoxville's cemeteries inspired James Agee's A Death in the Family and Tennessee Williams' essay "The Man in the Overstuffed Chair." Frances Hodgson Burnett lived here as a teenager and buried her mother here. Also buried here are blues legend Ida Cox and Indy 500 driver Pete Kreis, whose sarcophagus bears a tiny marble car completing "The Last Lap" on its track. The book is filled with charming stories of Knoxville's other citizens, from sculptors to judges to ghosts.
The absolute highlight of the book, however, is Aaron Jay's lovely black and white photography. He captures the grave sculptures as if they are on the verge of coming to life and catches the light playing across the ornamentation and lettering. Knoxville was known as the Marble City for the stone quarried and carved there. This book makes a good case for visiting and seeing these beautiful artworks for yourself.
Knoxville was the most bitterly divided city in America during the Civil War. It's also site of one of the earliest national cemeteries, burial ground of Union men who died during the weeks-long campaign in East Tennessee.
Knoxville's cemeteries inspired James Agee's A Death in the Family and Tennessee Williams' essay "The Man in the Overstuffed Chair." Frances Hodgson Burnett lived here as a teenager and buried her mother here. Also buried here are blues legend Ida Cox and Indy 500 driver Pete Kreis, whose sarcophagus bears a tiny marble car completing "The Last Lap" on its track. The book is filled with charming stories of Knoxville's other citizens, from sculptors to judges to ghosts.
The absolute highlight of the book, however, is Aaron Jay's lovely black and white photography. He captures the grave sculptures as if they are on the verge of coming to life and catches the light playing across the ornamentation and lettering. Knoxville was known as the Marble City for the stone quarried and carved there. This book makes a good case for visiting and seeing these beautiful artworks for yourself.
June 20, 2021
Jack Neeley does it again, The Webb Spartan with the UTK training nails Knoxville history. I have read several of his books and this one is a must read. Learn where the real Knoxville families are buried.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews