This new exhibit will explore how 19th-century Americans managed public health concerns, developed a new appreciation for green space and wildlife, and ensured their memorialization in a newly established public space: the rural cemetery. With the American population growing dramatically in the early 19th century, urban graveyards were quickly becoming overcrowded and unhygienic spaces, trapped between city structures with no place to expand. Waves of cholera threatened the living, underscoring an immediate need for an alternative to city burials. City expansion and an emerging appreciation for green spaces reshaped land use for burial grounds and transformed surrounding terrains. As the desire to be interred in these scenic landscapes grew, grave markers, tombstones, and monuments emerged as a high art form – a product of means, social connections, and endeavors to be memorialized. Rural cemeteries quickly became social centers for the living, and were emulated across America, inspiring urban planning and city design. Rural cemeteries are not macabre or gloomy places to be visited only when necessary. American rural cemeteries are open-air museums, acting as reliquaries of genealogical information, evocative iconography, landscape and horticultural design, and sanctuaries for wildlife.