Memorials Inventory Project (MIP), Project Description - 2002

The National Cemetery Administration (NCA), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), has jurisdiction over 156 cemetery properties in 41 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There are an estimated 800 monuments and memorials throughout this system of 123 National Cemeteries and affiliated soldiers’, Government, and confederate lots. Burials at more than two-thirds of these properties date to the Civil War or earlier, when they were administered by the U.S. Army.

To document the largest and most significant category of its monuments and memorials, NCA is partnering with Save Outdoor Sculpture! (SOS!), a program within Heritage Conservation Inc., a non-profit organization devoted to the preservation and care of many types of historic resources, with 10 years’ experience in volunteers’ survey of public outdoor sculpture nationwide. NCA estimates this project will document about 300 monuments and memorials located in more than 100 NCA cemetery properties across the country.

When this project is complete, the inventory data will reside at NCA as well as be publicly accessible on-line through another SOS! partner, the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The project started in spring 2002, with data submission complete by the end of the calendar year.