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Mourning is a strange thing, and different cultures deal with it in vastly different ways. But there’s a reason people associate the Victorians above all with morbidity and death, and one of them is memento mori like this:
The fact is, postmortem photographs like this were taken more than any other kind of photograph in the Victorian era — especially in the U.S. — and in many cases these carefully-arranged, meticulously staged pictures were the only ones ever taken of their subjects. From Stanley Burns’ book Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America:
These photographs were a common aspect of American culture, a part of the mourning and memorialization process. Surviving families were proud of these images and hung them in their homes, sent copies to friends and relatives, wore them as lockets or carried them as pocket mirrors. Nineteenth-century Americans knew how to respond to these images. Today there is no culturally normative response to postmortem photographs.
So, given your lack of a “culturally normative response” to these pictures, dear reader, we advise the faint of heart among you to click elsewhere.
“Child in Coffin at the Death Room”
From PBS.com: “This portrait appears to have been taken in the formal parlor of a family home. The parlor, or “death room,” was an important part of funerary rituals for most of the 19th century, the place where deceased family members were laid out for final respects. This image dates to c. 1890-1905, a time when many funerals were still taking place at home. Soon, however, death would begin to leave the home and by end of World War I most Americans will receive their health care in doctor’s offices and hospitals and most funerals will take place in funeral homes. As the funeral “parlor” came into vogue, the home parlor was rechristened a “living room.” A 1910 issue of Ladies Home Journal declared the “death room” to be a term of the past.”
Also, did you notice the strange silhouette on the right side of the picture? That’s the photographer’s assistant, holding the casket lid open for the shot.
For me, though, more intriguing than the dead are the living who pose with them — usually stoic and reserved, it’s the little bit of emotion their faces betray that make these portraits so compelling … and heartbreaking. (Above and below: siblings with their brothers.)
Another common theme in Victorian-era postmortem photography was the staged scene of mourning, which was often highly melodramatic, like this one, “Orphans at Their Mother’s Grave”:
The photograph above also reveals another Victorian preoccupation: spirit photography. Likely a double-exposure featuring an “actress” portraying the childrens’ mother, this style seems to me a highly theatrical way to deal with one’s grief.
Another style was the photograph in which the dead were posed to look alive — the first in this series, at the top of this post, is an “eyes-open” example. The use of props like this man’s newspaper was less common; perhaps it was included to distract from the unnatural rigidness of his hands, among other giveaways.
Wow. We sure look at death differently these days. These photos remind me of the ‘death photos’ from the movie ‘The Others’. Creepy yet fascinating
posted by JaneM on 5-6-2008 at 11:52 am
I love these posts! Keep them coming. Does that make me creepy?
posted by Carmen on 5-6-2008 at 12:09 pm
JaneM - I was just thinking the same thing about The Others. These pictures aren’t too bad except for the first one. Somehow having a dead person’s eyes open staring at you is eerily creepy… like they can see you.
posted by CK on 5-6-2008 at 12:10 pm
Strangly people still actually do this. About 8 or so years ago I worked in the photo-lab of a local grocery store. The majority of the pictures we got were hunting photos with deer hanging from trees being gutted or photos of Granny at the funeral. Very weird. The worst one, and I’ll never get it out of my head, was one day trying to color balance a print. For those who don’t know, there is more to it than just sticking the film in and hitting print. Depending on how long the film sat around or what the light was like when the pictures were taken there is color correction to do, people can come out with a picnk or yellow or blue cast to them. Anyway I couldn’t get the baby in the picture to look any less yellow, then I realized he was dead. He was not in a coffin, just on a piece of black cloth. I had thought he was sleeping but when you looked clost there was something just not right about his face. So sad . . . not to be selfish, but I wish the people who brought that roll in had warned us, I was only 18 at the time and totally unprepated for something like that.
posted by Em on 5-6-2008 at 12:14 pm
Jane and CK –
Yes, The Others uses these photos to great effect — probably the scariest part of the film!
posted by Ransom Riggs on 5-6-2008 at 12:27 pm
That first kid seem like he’s staring at me. So creeped out.
posted by Tricia on 5-6-2008 at 12:30 pm
@Em:
I used to work in a 1-hour photo lab in a small town drug store. We routinely processed photos for the local police. I once saw a series of photos taken by the police of an elderly gentleman who had apparently dropped dead in his house. A couple of days later, in a non-police roll of film, the same old man lying in his casket.
Both sets of photos creeped me out. I could understand why the police would want the photos they had, but I didn’t know why anyone would want photos of the body at the funeral. Now it makes a little more sense.
posted by Ohne Hosen on 5-6-2008 at 1:14 pm
Actually, there was a similar custom involving painted portraits of deceased loved ones.
Because painted portraiture and photography were both very expensive then, it’s not uncommon to find that a portrait from that era any sort occurred more often when a family member was deceased, especially if the individual was young. Unless the family was truly rich or in some way connected to an artist (photography or paint), families really couldn’t afford to create these sorts of stopped-in-time, tangible memories until after someone had passed on to keep them, in some small way, alive for the family.
Following this note, a museum not too far off from my hometown boasts a life-sized painting of a little boy that was done from his momento mori. They have a copy of the small photograph near the painting, and in both his eyes are open.
It always gave me shivers.
posted by ACute Angle on 5-6-2008 at 1:37 pm
Last night, in my History of the Beatles class (Best. Class. Ever.), my teacher showed us a copy of the National Enquirer that he’d kept from the week John Lennon was killed. The cover had a picture of John in the morgue on it.
Part of me didn’t really want to look at the picture - I would have much preferred to picture John alive in my head - but the other, morbid, part of me looked anyway.
I know it’s not quite the same thing as these photos, but it was just kind of funny that this post came after seeing the picture last night.
Creepy! Love it!
posted by Melodye on 5-6-2008 at 1:45 pm
stunning. great post.
posted by heather on 5-6-2008 at 2:22 pm
Yes, the first picture creeps me out, but the girl standing with her dead little brother breaks my heart. The look on her face hints at a betrayl. It’s as though she’s angry with the photographer for thaking the picture in the first place.
Thanks for the post.
posted by Bethany on 5-6-2008 at 2:39 pm
Sorry, I meant betrayal.
posted by Bethany on 5-6-2008 at 2:40 pm
My extended family in Utah often takes photos at funerals and viewings. I admit, I have been photographed standing next to my grandmother’s open coffin. Definitely felt kinda weird doing that… I found it most difficult to decide what kind of somber expression to have on my face, however, after the photo was taken I looked at it only to see my sister smiling happily.
Not my thing.
posted by Anne on 5-6-2008 at 2:44 pm
I’m going to have bad dreams tonight, I know it!
posted by beth on 5-6-2008 at 3:08 pm
My grandmother takes pictures of people in their caskets. Then she shows them to everyone for months afterwards and says things like how “beautiful” they looked.
They never look beautiful. They never look like themselves. I don’t get it at all.
However, I also don’t get touching, hugging and kissing people in their casekts either. To me, once they are dead, the body is really nothing. Seems wrong to touch and hug all over it.
posted by Karen on 5-6-2008 at 3:30 pm
Photographs back in the day were very time consuming. Children and other folks would literally fall asleep while posing. Many postmortems of children are actually sleeping children. Caskets are pretty much the only way to tell if the subject is actually dead.
posted by Christy on 5-6-2008 at 4:18 pm
My Grandparents had a son born with an enlarged heart who died of pneumonia when he was 6 mos old. They hadn’t had his picture made yet so the had him embalmed and took the family to a portrait studio for some family pics…yikes!
posted by Amber on 5-6-2008 at 4:23 pm
Let’s not forget the most famous of the memento mori:
*EDIT* Crap! It won’t let me post an image link. Oh well, it was the poster to Weekend at Bernie’s.
posted by Austin on 5-6-2008 at 4:32 pm
OOh…very creepy and yet fascinating at the same time. Recently, my wife was asked by her cousin to take some photos of a dead relative (the cousins’ mother) in her coffin. She needed them for some crazy reason and didn’t bring a camera…who could forget that!? Anyway, we were totally creeped out by her request and were left scratching our heads on that one…
posted by Eric on 5-6-2008 at 4:42 pm
While photos “back in the day” did take longer to expose than today, in most cases it wasn’t long enough to fall asleep. Some photographic methods developed in the mid 19th century would have measured exposure time in seconds rather than minutes. So, if there was a lot of doubt about whether a child was sleeping or dead, the type of picture could lend a clue.
However, the biggest clue is the numerous small children photographed who are alive. If the exposure time was so long that a child could fall asleep, movement during that time frame would make a very blurry picture. If you’ve ever tried to get a small child to sit still for a picture, you know this is quite a task. Given the number of clear pictures of living children taken during the era of the death photos in Ransom’s article, I’d have to argue that you could probably make some good guesses about living status without a casket in the picture.
Though the casket undoubtedly helps. :)
posted by kate on 5-6-2008 at 4:56 pm
Before photography they would make a plaster cast of your dead face!
posted by DNA on 5-6-2008 at 5:39 pm
Before photography they would make a plaster cast of your dead face!
posted by DNA on 5-6-2008 at 5:39 pm
I’ve seen some of the ones with the eyes painted open…very sad. Some people couldn’t afford a photo until it was too late to have one made of a living person.
posted by Jennifer on 5-6-2008 at 6:06 pm
I don’t think they are creepy, just sad.
What creeps me out is how we now insist on making our dead look like they are just sleeping, using plastic molds with sharp points to keep the eyes closed and make the mouth hold that weird smile, then slather them with so much makeup it’s hard to recognize them.
posted by Pam on 5-6-2008 at 6:35 pm
It doesn’t creep me out in the least bit. VERY fascinating though
posted by Melissa on 5-6-2008 at 7:10 pm
Taking photos of the dead at funerals is still quite common in the South, especially among blacks and (traditionally) low-class whites.
I was shocked and fascinated when I learned of this (though Southern, I come from a different milieu), and approached a few publishers about doing a “coffee table book” of collected photos.
posted by mike on 5-6-2008 at 7:19 pm
the third one looks like tay zonday
posted by andrew on 5-6-2008 at 8:46 pm
When I was about 11 years old, I remember browsing through the book shelves in our city’s public library. I came upon one old ragged book…it was black with no cover or title. When I opened it, I got the shock of my young life. It was filled with pages and pages of these memento mori photographs. I never forgot that moment.
posted by Kevin on 5-6-2008 at 9:15 pm
fasinating!
posted by Leah McChesney on 5-6-2008 at 10:13 pm
In all of my years in wedding photography, I have never seen how disturbing that is…
posted by Furious Photographers on 5-6-2008 at 10:23 pm
Exposure times grew shorter through the (19th) century. Civil War photographs are posed, views of where some battle had occurred, or photos of those killed. Studio portraits were posed using neck braces to help hold the subject in position, hence the regular “grim” expressions. The actual exposure could be frelatively short, but the set-uop, including focusing would still take minutes rather than seconds.
posted by Gary Sargent on 5-6-2008 at 10:25 pm
good lawdey Im glad times have completely changed.
posted by Death Quiz on 5-6-2008 at 10:36 pm
As I read it, I expected the last sentence to read: The use of props like this man’s newspaper was less common; perhaps it was included to distract from the unnatural rigidness of his hands, among other dead giveaways.
posted by mr goathead on 5-6-2008 at 11:03 pm
It’s definitely a tradition among blacks to take pictures of the deceased either at the viewing or at the funeral. In my family, it’s not strange to stumble upon such pictures in an old photo album. When my great-grandma died, my mom sent my brother and I to the church early so that we could get pictures of her before everyone arrived. I always wondered why we kept pictures like that, but I guess since I grew up with it I never really questioned it. Also, we bought a picture of MLK, Jr. in his coffin that we bought as a souvenier in Tenn.
posted by Carmen on 5-6-2008 at 11:14 pm
Death simply is.
It’s not scary unless you don’t understand which world you are living in.
posted by thetruth on 5-6-2008 at 11:16 pm
Keep in mind that photography wasn’t an everyday event like it is today. Families could find themselves surprised by the death of a loved one, and, finding that they had no photographs of the recently deceased, want to capture their image before they were gone forever.
posted by Tim on 5-6-2008 at 11:25 pm
I am an Antiques Dealer and am intriqued by most things from the Victorian Era. I have only once found one of these photos at an Estate and the subject was a mother with her infant. Both died during Childbirth and the photo was sad, but so typical of this type. Of course, I sold the photo on eBay. It was interesting that the family members who sold me the photo had no idea who the woman was, yet it was carefully preserved with all of the family’s mementos. Thanks for this insightful article and for the references. janieruth.com
posted by Jane on 5-6-2008 at 11:26 pm
I don’t believe that these are all real.
posted by sachin on 5-6-2008 at 11:50 pm
As odd as this is - it still happens today. My sister is a videographer and amongst the “normal” weddings, pageants, etc that she films, one of the more common requests she gets is filming funerals. Her clients will often request that she film not only the service, but the body in the casket.
posted by ginauf on 5-7-2008 at 1:09 am
great commentsand great post. When i was at my great grandfathers open casket funeral, i said to my dad, who was standing next to me viewing my grandfather,” hey, even he’s dressed up nice” (i was 6 or 7)
The image of my father laughing out loud in front of his grand-father in law casket is one that still makes me laugh….
posted by micah b on 5-7-2008 at 1:12 am
“Before photography they would make a plaster cast of your dead face! ”
Before plaster they kept your head.
posted by Tyler on 5-7-2008 at 1:17 am
Very good,I like those pictures.
posted by liusichi on 5-7-2008 at 2:56 am
I wouldn’t say these kinds of photos are creepy, they’re just ridiculous. The one with the brother and sister is really beautiful, though.
When my grandfather died, my grandmother wanted us to take pictures of him in the coffin. I think it’s because she really likes mourning. I’m not a big fan of these photos…
Btw, I’m from Europe, so I guess it’s not just a US thing?
Oh, and your Captcha really sucks. /:
posted by XR on 5-7-2008 at 4:04 am
There’s a great book called “Wisconsin Death Trip” by Michael Lesy (Pantheon publisher) containing these sorts of photos as well as small snippets from newspapers about macabre and/or strange happenings in the midwest around the turn-of-the-century.
posted by tahlula on 5-7-2008 at 7:15 am
well, i wouldn’t call that creepy… just informative to some extent. but not really creepy
posted by wahooha on 5-7-2008 at 7:24 am
@Carmen you are correct in the african american community me being a member. @ funerals we take tons of pictures I’m always asked to photograph passed away relatives. It could also be a generational thing among us I don’t see many of the younger ones asking for pics at funerals.
posted by CAL on 5-7-2008 at 8:12 am
That girl sitting next to her dead brother looks a little fishy. Do you think she had something to do with her brothers death? I want the investegation reopened. And the set of twins , I couldt imagine what that alive brother is feeling. The look on his face is horrid.
posted by Jason on 5-7-2008 at 8:24 am
The subtext of this article seems to be that we look at death the correct way today, and a “theatrical” way of dealing with grief is some creepy artifact to be looked down upon. (Using theater to deal with emotions? Shocking! What’s next? Music?) But I’m not sure that our look-the-other-way attitude toward death is obviously better. It actually seems more irrational — we have a superstition that talking about death openly is dangerous.
posted by Brian on 5-7-2008 at 9:40 am
I once saw a scan of a newpaper article. The article was about the funeral of a hip-hop record company executive, who had been killed. His body had been placed behind the wheel of his yellow Lamborghini Murçiélago. His eyes were open and bulging. The contrast with his black face made the white eyeballs stand out even more.
The car was sold on ebay.
posted by PeterJohn on 5-7-2008 at 11:40 am
The practice of post-mortem photographs was also common in Europe, in some parts until well after the second world war, even to the present day. My girlfriend’s grandmother, for example, finds it perfectly acceptable to have a framed picture on display of the hearse that carried her dead husband’s corpse to his funeral. There were also pictures taken of him in the casket. This was 1995.
posted by Toon on 5-7-2008 at 1:51 pm
In my family they take pictures of the deceased and store them in an album no one ever looks through. When I was six I took a picture of my stillborn baby brother to class. My teacher called my parents and I was told never to bring anything else to class. I never knew why kids in my class got so scared. I thought he looked cute. Then two weeks ago I’m now twenty I was looking through my friend’s cell phone and saw pictures of her deceased grandma in a coffin..I dropped the phone. I see what is soo creepy now.
posted by Christy on 5-7-2008 at 2:02 pm
These break my heart! :(
Esp. the ones where the siblings are made to pose with their dead brothers. I can’t imagine.
I have to agree with Tim though; back then photos just weren’t so common. I can see how a mother would want some picture, ANY picture to remember her baby.
Aw, so sad!
posted by mrs.djs on 5-7-2008 at 2:14 pm
Those are very disturbing photographs. That stuff is just plain weird.
posted by Rick on 5-7-2008 at 7:34 pm
its true, these kinds of photos are still taken in many parts of europe. i lived in portugal and when my brother died (about 8 years ago), my mother took dozens of photos of his grave decorated with flowers. i always thought it was strange, but at least she didnt take pix at the funeral. if i had to look at a photo of his open casket right now, i would be absolutely hysterical. i was a kid when it happened and was left traumatized. the (living) siblings in these pix must have suffered so much. i wouldnt want such painful memories documented like that.
posted by mar on 5-7-2008 at 8:00 pm
Most of this photographs were take to keep a good memory alive.
The dead people within this pictures are portreyed as if they would be alive.
This was necessary, because in the old days people had not so many photos of them, so some of the dead people were photographed for the first time to keep the mamory about them alive.
posted by Cute Doreen on 5-7-2008 at 9:10 pm
“Orphans at Their Mother’s Grave” appears to be part of a stereogram, aka a 3-D picture. Do you have a link to the complete card?
posted by ham on 5-7-2008 at 10:06 pm
Dozens of pictures like this are taken every day in North America! It is no longer a thing of the past, in fact, there are tons of websites where you can see pictures. I know several people who keep pictures of a dead loved one.
Yes, nowadays, when you have a stillborn child, they are lovingly washed and dressed and posed for family photos. For parents whose angels went straight to heaven, it’s often all they have - a whisper of a broken promise, a shattered dream. It’s not creepy. It’s a way to say, “You were here. You meant something to me”.
posted by Marion on 5-7-2008 at 10:54 pm
Did any notice the left leg of the little girl in the coffin. It looks like a toremented face at the bottom.
posted by justsumcracker on 5-7-2008 at 11:58 pm
waw! i’m scared. lol. they are creepy. and gee, i had to see it at this time,it’s almost midnight. lol, i do get scared easily. :(
posted by randiss chinny on 5-8-2008 at 10:38 am
This doesn’t seem creepy or sad to me but a part of life. We filmed my grandfathers funeral for members of the family that were in active service overseas and weren’t able to make it. It seems a similar thing to this, a way of saying this person has died and we want to remember the person that was alive.
posted by Binx on 5-10-2008 at 10:22 am
I think that my family still has a pic of my grate-grandfather in a coffin. Used to be popular in Russia.
posted by Larisa on 5-13-2008 at 3:41 pm
someone earlier posted about feeling awkward having to decide on what sad expression to make when being photographed by a relative’s casket- although slightly different, this reminded me of when I visited Dachau and a family was photographing their small son next to the original crematory ovens, making him pose over and over again to look as sad as he could. It is interesting that a place associated with death would be treated as a postmortem photography without a corpse.
posted by cheryl on 5-14-2008 at 8:32 pm