Colonial customs such as requiring the family of the deceased to give gifts of mourning
rings or gloves to mourners were losing popularity. This practice is documented as far
back as the Middle Ages, when money was set aside in wills to purchase mourning rings
for certain family members and friends.5 The mourning rings would often have a small
receptacle in the center for a locket of hair from the deceased.
But in the last half of the nineteenth century, mourning began to take on a different
character, influenced primarily by Queen Victoria of England. Her husband of twentyone years, the former Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha (a German State), died on 14
December 1861. Victoria had been completely devoted to and dependent upon Albert,
and his loss affected her deeply. She began to wear a widow’s cap and gave instructions
for mourning decorations to be hung liberally throughout the kingdom. In the 1860s,
flowers were not yet part of mourning customs; instead, black drapes were hung at the
house of mourning. The wife of the deceased was expected to wear black for a minimum
of a year. Other family members’ mourning periods varied according to their relationship
to the deceased.6 One of Victoria’s biographers, Stanley Weintraub, noted:
Mirroring her mourning, the Household, at the Queen’s instruction, went about in
black crêpe, broadcloth, and bombazine, underscoring the gloom. For a year after
Albert’s death, no member of her Household could appear in public except in
mourning garb, a practice that might have continued indefinitely had her ladies
not sunk so much in morale that Victoria relented sufficiently to permit "semimourning" colors of white, mauve, and grey. Even royal servants were obliged to
wear a black crêpe band on the left arm until 1869.7
Although the monarch of one of the most powerful countries in the world, Victoria was in
seclusion for about five years after Albert’s death–too long for her subjects and the
British press. One person went so far as to post a handbill on the wall of Buckingham
Palace that read, "These extensive premises to be let or sold, the late occupant having
retired from business."8
The American public–as fascinated with the English monarchy then as it is today–was
sympathetic to the Queen’s grief even though it was preoccupied with the Civil War.
With the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, public mourning in the United
States paralleled the experiences of the British public following the death of their
"uncrowned king." Embalming had grown in acceptance during the war, being used to
slow a body’s decomposition until transportation and burial. Because Lincoln was
embalmed, his body was able to be viewed by mourners in Washington, D.C., New York,
and Chicago before he was buried in Springfield, Illinois.9
Gloom and darkness were the hallmarks of mourning in late nineteenth-century Victorian
America and many mourning symbols appeared during this period. Mourning symbols
included jewelry made of hair and jet (a lightweight material from the coal family),10
coffin photographs of the deceased, memorial cards with and without photos of the
deceased, mausoleums, and, in smaller towns, lengthy obituaries.
Hairwork jewelry grew out of the desire to keep a part of a loved one close to the wearer.
Godey’s Lady’s Book of December 1850 introduced the craft to American women, which
soon became a popular pastime. While not used exclusively for mourning, hairwork
jewelry was a natural way to remember a deceased loved one. The Godey’s Lady’s Book
of May 1855 contained the following summary:
Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us, like
love. It is so light, so gentle, so escaping from the idea of death, that with a lock
of hair belonging to a child or friend, we may almost look up to heaven and
compare notes with the angelic nature–may almost say, "I have a piece of thee
here, not unworthy of thy being now."11
Hairwork jewelry took various forms including brooches, bracelets, watch chains, and
earrings. A jeweler would put the finishing touches on the piece to make it wearable. The
Knightsbridge Antique Mall in Northville, Michigan, displays a beautiful example of a
hairwork brooch made circa 1850—60, which they courteously allowed to be
photographed. The brooch has loops of intricately woven hair, cinched in the middle by a
gold clasp engraved with the word "Mother," with three hairwork tassels dangling from
the center.
Hairwork took on larger dimensions in artistic ensembles preserved in shadow boxes.
The Plymouth, Michigan, Historical Museum has two hairwork shadow boxes on display
that can be dated to the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Jet was popularized as a material for mourning jewelry by Queen Victoria, who wore the
stone both in mourning for King William IV, her predecessor, and for her husband
Albert. Jet was lightweight and easy to carve so it became a useful material for making
the large brooches and necklace designs that were popular during the period.
Funeral cards have been around for centuries, but their use has changed over time.
Originally created to invite mourners to a funeral, today they frequently appear in funeral
homes during wakes as a memento of the deceased. (See p. 21 for more information on
memorial cards.)
Another visual symbol of the mourning style of the Victorian era is the large mausoleums
built in the new, beautifully landscaped, park-style cemeteries that began appearing. In
earlier days, people were more frequently buried in churchyards or family plots than in
community cemeteries. The fear of the spread of infectious diseases was one of the
motivations for the creation of large cemetery tracts on the outskirts of towns. Some of
these cemeteries tried hard to emulate a park-like environment, making a visit to the
cemetery a more pleasant experience. Some people spent extravagant sums of money to
memorialize their loved ones in mausoleums or with artistic headstones in the form of a
tree stump, a cherub, or other classic designs. The Hein mausoleum in Forest Lawn
Cemetery in Detroit was built to commemorate Otto Hein, a proprietor of Ziervogel and
Hein Funeral Home.
Photography was a very popular pastime in Victorian America and, according to author
Maureen Delorme, "postmortem photography of the deceased, especially of children, was
a virtual obsession to nineteenth century Americans."12 Bereaved families wanting to
keep a memory of a lost child would have a photo made of the child lying in its coffin.
Some of these photos were given to family members and friends or appeared on
memorial cards announcing the child’s death. The Plymouth Historical Museum’s
collection contains both a photo of Elnora Horn, a pretty young girl, and one of Elnora
taken perhaps a year later, laid out in her coffin. The photos were donated by Lillian
Hartmann, a childhood friend.