PARK AND CEMETERY. 
201 
MONUMENT MAN AND CEMETERY SUPERINTENDENT 
An address before the A. A. C. S. Convention at Norfolk, Va., 
by A. L. Kimball, of Kimball & Combe Co., Providence, R. /. 
The few words I have to say can hardly 
be dignified by the term of address. I am 
simply going to tell you a few thoughts I 
have in mind regarding the relations of 
the monument man to the cemetery super-, 
intendent. 
A few years ago I was being shown, by 
the superintendent of one of the leading 
cemeteries of the country, a new section 
he had just laid out, and was admiring its 
beauty when, with a wave of his hand, he 
said, ‘T wish I could exclude all monu- 
ments from that section,” and I realized 
that we monument men are sometimes 
looked upon as necessary evils. We are 
necessary, perhaps, but we ought not to 
be necessary evils, and I shall touch on 
that point later on. 
My experience in selling monumental 
work extends over a period of thirty years. 
In the early years my experience extended 
beyond the local lines of my own city of 
Providence and vicinity to New York and 
vicinity and in the South, and in those 
early years the relationship between the 
monument man and the cemetery superin- 
tendent was thought of almost wholly from 
the personal point of view. 
If we could stand in with the superin- 
tendent and thereby gain some advantage 
in advance information and some personal 
influence of the superintendent, then we 
were surely on the road to success. The 
spirit was to work the superintendent for 
all he was worth, using whatever methods 
seemed to best promise success. 
The selling of monumental work has its 
own peculiar adverse conditions ; the great- 
est among them all of us know to be is 
where to find the prospective customer, 
and working through the good offices of 
the superintendent seemed to be, at the 
period of which I speak, the most prom- 
ising for results. 
Great changes have taken place in our 
line of business and methods for securing 
customers, especially during the last ten 
years. Competition has grown to an un- 
thought of degree, and today the up-to- 
date monument man has his systematic 
method of securing customers through 
proper advertising, the mailing of book- 
lets, letters and follow-up letters, and per- 
-sonal solicitation, so that any thought of 
dependence upon the superintendent in this 
direction is practically obsolete. 
■Another change has taken place in the 
mfinumental business, and it is the most 
encouraging feature to those of us who 
appreciate quality of work, artistic de- 
sign, and appropriateness of design for its 
location. I think that most of us monu- 
ment men feel we would like to deny any 
responsibility for much of the work we 
sold twenty-five or thirty years ago. What 
we thought was meritorious at that time 
we now realize is most unworthy to be 
called artistic; and yet many of the design- 
ers of that period are creating the best 
work of today. The unthought of growth 
of the use of the mausoleum has given the 
designer ample opportunity for full play in 
his efforts at architectural designing, and 
now the average purchaser of monumental 
work is demanding designs of distinctive 
merit, not of size as formerly, but of real 
merit. That this change has come about 
slowly is largely through the fault of the 
monumental salesman, who has been afraid 
to show or suggest anything new, fearing 
the loss of a sale to his competitor. 
With this change in the character of 
monumental work sold and methods of se- 
curing customers has come about a new 
relation between the monument man and 
the cemetery superintendent. 
We can see, as we visit cemeteries in 
different parts of the country, the changed 
appearance of the new developments in 
the various cemeteries, as regards the 
monuments of twenty or thirty years ago 
and of recent years. Today, as I have 
stated, the work for the most part has 
some distinctive merit, either from its sim- 
ple lines and good proportions or from its 
artistic detail ; and the small artistic me- 
morial, appropriate to its location and sur- 
roundings, is in evidence, rather than a 
large mass of stone loaded with any old 
piece of carving that the designer or sales- 
man thought would land his customer. 
The up-to-date monument man today 
has, or should have, in mind the lot and 
surroundings of his prospective customer 
before he suggests designs for his consid- 
eration. 
The monument man does, or should, take 
the superintendent into his confidence to 
the extent of learning something of his 
views for an appropriate stone for a cer- 
tain lot. and in this way he fortifies him- 
self with his prospect and gains the tacit 
confidence and good will of the superin- 
tendent. who appreciates that the granite 
man wants to be of assistance in preserving 
tbe natural or artificial beaut_\- of the cem- 
etery. 
This changed condition has developed a 
feeling of co-operaiton which, to my mind, 
has never heretofore existed betw'een the 
monument salesman and the cemetery su- 
perintendent. I fear that many monument 
men will feel I have idealized this con- 
dition and that it does not exist generally 
even now, but m}' personal e.xperience leads 
me to believe that it is a fact, and that if 
more of my fellow craft w'ould take the 
superintendent into their confidence to the 
extent of advising with him and getting 
his views regarding appropriateness of de- 
sign for the surrounding conditions of the 
lot of a prospect, they would find much 
helpfulness. 
You superintendents are striving more 
and more to beautify and improve, and we 
monument men have, in the past at least, 
worked directly against your interests by 
erecting some mongrel design or mass of 
granite that had no relation to the contour 
of the land, planting and landscape effect 
you had so carefully studied and carried 
out. And I firmly believe that the success- 
ful monument man of the future must 
give careful attention to this feature, win- 
ing out, at least, by his own sense of what 
is in harmony with your work, if he has 
not the courage to work directly with you. 
We have on every side of the commer- 
cial world the plea for co-operation rather 
than cut-throat competition, and I know 
of no other business that could be better 
benefited by co-operation — the co-operation 
of the monument salesman and the man 
who creates the beautiful landscape effects 
and vistas that we are to use as the set- 
ting for our work. 
We cannot improve upon your work ; 
therefore let us at least co-operate with 
you to preserve, as far as possible, the 
beauties you have created ; and in doing 
so I am sure the relation between the 
monument man and the cemetery superin- 
tendent will be one of helpfulness to each, 
having in mind the improvement of the 
character of monumental work sold and its 
appropriateness to the surrounding con- 
ditions of its setting. 
THE OBITUARY RECORD. 
Jackson Thornton Dawson, for over forty 
years superintendent of the .Arnold .Arbo- 
retum. anfl one of the most noted horti- 
culturists of the world, died August 3, 
after an illness of several months at his 
home in Jamaica Plain, Mass. 
Jackson I)awsr)n was born in Yorkshire, 
England, in 1841. lie came to America 
when quite young and at the age of 8 
started to work in the nurseries of his 
uncle at .Andover, Mass. He moved from 
there to Cambridge, Mass., a few years 
later and worked in the nurseries of C. M. 
TIovey & Co. His enlistment during the 
Civil war dated from .August 2, 1862. In 
1871 Mr. Dawson accepted a position with 
the Bussey Institute, Jamaica Plain, Mass., 
then in charge of the late I'rancis Park- 
man. .After two year.s’ service in the 
school of horticulture there. Prof. C. S. 
Sargent took the place of Mr. Parkman 
and a little later became director of the 
