By Nora Almeida, Valerie Baloga, Ryan Breaux, Sara Campot, Kai Alexis Smith, Joanna Sondheim, Stephanie Turnbull, Rachel Wittmann, Pratt Students; Erin Allsop and Sara Fetherolf, Brooklyn College Interns
Title: Presbrey-Leland Monument Company, 1930-1980
Extent: 31.0 Boxes
Arrangement: 31 boxes: 13 document and 18 oversize. The files held within both the document boxes and oversized boxes are arranged numerically by Green-Wood Cemetery lot number. Each folder also indicates the name of the client or estate and the Presbrey-Leland account number, and is labeled in the following format: “Presbrey-Leland account number / Green-Wood Cemetery lot number / name of client and/or estate.”
Date Acquired: 11/01/2011
Subjects: Brooklyn--New York, N.Y., Cemeteries--New York (State)--New York--History, Green-Wood Cemetery--New York, N.Y., Landscape architecture--New York (State)--New York--Designs and plans, New York (N.Y.)--Buildings, structures,etc., Sepulchral monuments--New York (State)--New York
Languages: English
The records of the Presbrey-Leland Monument Company are housed in thirty-one containers: thirteen LTA document boxes (approximately 6.5 cubic feet) and eighteen custom oversized boxes (approximately 9 cubic feet). The records include purchase orders, contracts, correspondence, hand-written notes, hand-drafted elevations and scale drawings, blueprints, and rubbings of monuments. Records of cancelled orders are included in this collection as well. The files contain documents that support an understanding of the process of creating custom-made monuments, as well as information about individuals in the context of the orders.
The files held within both the document boxes and oversized boxes are arranged numerically by Green-Wood Cemetery lot number. Each folder also indicates the name of the client or estate and the Presbrey-Leland account number, and is labeled in the following format: “Presbrey-Leland account number / Green-Wood Cemetery lot number / name of client and/or estate.” The bulk dates of accounts are from 1930-1960, but there are also accounts from the 1970s and 1980s. The materials in this collection are housed in acid-free folders. Due to the size of some of the items of this collection, some plans, drawings, and full-scale rubbings were separated and housed in oversized, acid-free folders and boxes.
The Presbrey-Leland Monument Company is a New England-based company that was founded over a century ago by the Presbrey and Leland families. The company is currently located in Valhalla, New York, but was formerly situated on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan. The company produces and designs monuments, mausoleums, plaques, markers, and gravesite landscapes and was considered an innovator of American monument and mausoleum design during the mid-twentieth century. Presbrey-Leland, Inc. has been affiliated with a number of contractors and subsidiary companies; several books on monument design and funerary architecture were published in the 1920s, 30s and 50s under the imprint “Presbrey-Leland Studios.” The company has created mausoleums for luminaries such as William Rockefeller and Walter P. Chrysler.
Green-Wood Cemetery, a National Historic Landmark and one of America’s first rural cemeteries, recently acquired part of the Presbrey-Leland Monument Company Archives. The records of the Presbrey-Leland Monument Company were initially transmitted to the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, and Susan Olsen, the Historian at Woodlawn, oversaw the disposition of the records and subsequent transmittal to appropriate repositories. The historic records documenting memorial designs and the development of the cemetery at Woodlawn, including a number of Presbrey-Leland records, were donated to the Avery Architectural and Fine Art Library at Columbia University in 2006. The Green-Wood Cemetery retains a similar collection of historic memorial design records from the Presbrey-Leland Monument Company archives that pertain directly to Green-Wood.
Brooklyn--New York, N.Y.
Cemeteries--New York (State)--New York--History
Green-Wood Cemetery--New York, N.Y.
Landscape architecture--New York (State)--New York--Designs and plans
New York (N.Y.)--Buildings, structures,etc.
Sepulchral monuments--New York (State)--New York
Repository: The Green-Wood Cemetery
Access Restrictions: Researchers may access The Presbrey-Leland Monument Company collection at the discretion of The Green-Wood Historic Fund &The Green-Wood Cemetery. For more information, contact Jeff Richman, the Green-Wood Cemetery Historian: historian@greenwoodcemetery.org.
Acquisition Source: Presbrey-Leland Monument Company
Acquisition Method: Donation
Processing Information: Accession #: 001-2012
