The Quickening of the Dead and the Dying of Death: Postmortem
Photographs from Nineteenth-Century America
by Suhjung Hur
"Photography" and "death" seem, at first sight, separate, unrelated words. Even cursory
contemplation of a photographic portrait, however, discloses the surreptitious kinship linking
the two. Recognizing that the human subject of a photographic portrait is paradoxically "dead
and . . . going to die,"1 Barthes poignantly bears witness to the relationship between
photography and death. By perpetuating in a print what was once before the camera but no
longer is, both in terms of time and space, photography is initially a nostalgic, and ultimately
an "elegiac," art.
This inherent kinship between death and photography is revealed most explicitly and
poignantly in nineteenth-century American postmortem photographs. Initially made to
memorialize the dead as part of the mourning process, postmortem pictures play a wider
ambivalent role in their embodiment of death and denial of it.
The three postmortem photographs in the Seaver Center collection are ambrotypes taken
during the second half of the nineteenth century. They share similar characteristics: they are
the pictures of children; children all look alive rather than dead, presented as if sleeping or
sitting in an armchair. Yet, such semblance of vitality and of subject-matter was not
uncommon in these representations. That children provided the major subject of this practice
is probably because of the high infant mortality of the period. Also, postmortem photography
offered a last chance for the remaining family to record an image of the departed one. In the
service of this device, photographers made every effort to make the death look "natural" or
the dead agreeably alive.
Indeed, sleep is certainly the most natural, easiest, and historically sanctioned way of
depicting death.2 However, postmortem photography began to represent a dead child in a new
and different way. In addition to depicting the child as if sleeping, he or she was now
photographed in his/her Sunday best, often seated in an armchair, or on a bed with eyes
open. A historian, Phillipe Ariès wrote that "parents evidently desired to represent their dead
children in all kinds of attitudes in order to express their intense grief and their passionate
desire to make their children survive in memory and in art, to exalt the children's innocence,
charm, and beauty."3 Childhood and memory were tightly knit together and photography
slipped naturally into this conjoinment.
Postmortem photographs also embody the sentimental ambiance of the nineteenth-century
America. In the closely interwoven Puritan community of the eighteenth century, the death of
a single person, viewed as an immediate loss to the whole community, affected the lives of
the others. In the nineteenth century, however, as American society became increasingly
complex, the death of an individual lost its communal significance, and emotions that had
previously been shared by the community were redirected inward, and restricted to the
immediate family.4 The family had to bear the grief of loss, and the sorrow consequently
became more intensified in this intimate, private circle.
At the turn of the twentieth century, American perception of death changed, a process that
was called as the 'dying of death'; American attitudes toward death became that of simple
denial. People pushed death away from their lives and alienated the dead in the hospital, into
invisibility. In nineteenth-century America, the camera was used not only to celebrate life but
also to mourn death. While the latter may no longer be the case, these touching relics from
the past will move us to contemplate death and to reflect on our denial of it. The photograph
of a dead child forces the viewer to confront not only the death of a loved one but also one's
own mortality as mememto mori.
Remembrance cards bearing a photograph of the deceased were popular around the turn of
the century. This cabinet card has a real photograph of Camilla Paech (1884-1908). The
printers, A. & E. Lewis of Adelaide, appear to have had trouble lining up the printed elements
on the card.
In June 1909 the Burra Record Studio, which also published the Burra Record newspaper,
advertised their "new and highly artistic design in Remembrance Cards, which includes a
beautiful photographic picture of the departed on top of a black and gold-edged cabinet card,
under which is printed the name of the deceased, the date of death and suitable verse." The
firm said it was already executing orders from Adelaide to Broken Hill.
http://users.chariot.net.au/~rjnoye/Misc/Postmort.htm
backdoor to the morgue http://www.whataslacker.com/backdoor/index.shtml
Past rituals reflected in faces of death
By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer
While technology is one of the first things that people think of when discussing change over
the last 100 years, some societal changes are no less profound.
Consider death. Before someone dies, medical professionals often have the last contact with
the person and afterward, the body is taken by funeral professionals. For family members,
death is a hands-off endeavor.
That’s not that way it used to be. Before 1900, people usually died at home, sometimes after
exhaustive vigils by family members to comfort them. Family members washed and dressed
the body and sat with it. The wake was held at home.
A show of postmortem photography at Trumbull Art Gallery, Warren, Ohio, from the collection
of Steve Degenaro of Poland, Ohio, details the changing attitudes toward death.
Postmortem photography goes back to the beginning of photography, and is an extension of
the mourning portraits that wealthy people commissioned. Examples include Daguerreotypes,
Ambrotypes and tin types spanning roughly the 1840s to the 1880s.
Sears sold memorial frames in which pictures of dead loved ones could be inserted amid
scenes of angels opening the gates of heaven or a garden.
“At first, people tend to be turned off by the subject,” said gallery Director Jennifer L.
Breckner. “But we also had some people come in who had seen pictures of their relatives or
knew the history.”
Photographing a deceased loved one helped people deal with loss. In the case of infants and
children, it was the only documentation that a family had, Ms. Breckner said.
Famous photo studios, such as Anson of New York, which is represented in the show, took
postmortem photos, but most of the collection is anonymous both in the subjects and
photographers. Degenaro acquired most of the pictures at garage sales, but his
advertisements have also been answered by people who didn’t know what to do with the
pictures, Ms. Breckner said.
Many of the early pictures, especially of children, were handpainted. Pink cheeks abound. It’s
a practice that was simply a technique at the time but the irony is too much for today’s
viewer. Some of the most difficult photos in the show are of mothers with their infant children.
But the mothers show a range of emotions that is as touching as sad. They often have stoic
expressions, but you can also sense the love they have for their children and the pride of
having had any time with them while alive.
Funerals are social occasions, and some families used photography as a kind of guest book.
Several photos show family, friends and clergy at the church or cemetery standing around the
coffin, which is open and tilted toward the camera.
Some postmortem portraits seem extreme, such as the man photographed in bed. The white
sheet and gown are bleached out by the primitive photographic process, giving his head, with
eyes opened, a sense that it is floating.
A life face painted on a boy and the skeletal man who appeared to have been through an
extended illness and is propped up in a rocking chair may disturb some viewers.
Some may find the paperweight made from the picture of a dead girl tasteless. But the final
family portrait of a man seated with his dead wife, and their kids standing behind them, brings
home the importance of the woman in the lives of her family, and the magnitude of the loss
they have suffered. After 1900, the death industry emerged and families gave up the death
rituals of the 19th century. While by no means abandoned, postmortem photography has
become an underground practice that turns the heads — and stomachs — of many in today’s
society.
The exhibit shows that the demands of family had different components than it does today.
The show will be up through Feb. 19. Information: (330) 395-4876.
This page continues our collection of spirit photographs with a selection of cabinet cards from the 1880s through th
20th century, stereo cards, postcards, and books relating to the photographing of ghosts or spirits. If you came to
page first you will find the introduction on page 1.
Cabinet cards, about 4 1/4 X 6 1/2 inches, are the most common size and style of photographs from the later
the 19th through the early years of the 20th century. This was a fertile period of interest in spiritualism and ar
major component of our collection. The first card in the row below shows what we believe is a 1902 self port
Robert Boursnell, a British medium/photographer of note. In his 1911 book, Photographing The Invisible, Co
devotes two chapters to Boursnell. The next photograph card shows a bearded man with a young "colored bo
taken, according to the label on the back, in 1895-96. This image is identified in the 1988 edition of Photogra
the Spirit World by Cyril Permutt, as a photograph by Boursnell of J. H. Evans with a spirit child.
The cabinet card below is on a mount that is very similar to the Boursnell but has no
identifying information. We will continue to research and update if we are able to identify the
photographer.
William Mumler's Spirit Photography
Spirit photography, popular during the nineteenth century, got its start in 1862 when William
Mumler made the first spirit photograph. The premise of spirit photography was that departed
spirits could imprint their images on pictures. The spirits appeared as faint, ghostly images
floating besides the living subjects.
Spirit photography had enormous appeal during and after the Civil War as bereaved families
sought some form of tangible proof that their loved ones lost during the war still continued their
existence in some fashion.
But spirit photography also attracted many critics, prominent among them P.T. Barnum, the
famous showman. Barnum felt that the spirit photographers were taking advantage of those
whose judgement was clouded by grief.
In April 1869 William Mumler was brought to trial for fraud. Barnum volunteered to testify
against him, and to prepare to do so he asked Abraham Bogardus, a respectable photographer, to
prepare the image shown to the left. In it, the spirit image of Abraham Lincoln can be seen
floating behind Barnum's right shoulder. Barnum wanted to demonstrate that spirit photographs
can be easily manufactured by any competent photographer.
At the trial Barnum made a point to differentiate between his own 'humbugs' and those of the
spirit photographers. He argued that despite his reputation for misleading the public, "I have
never been in any humbug business where I did not give value for the money."
1. Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans., Richard Howard (New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 1980), 95.
2. In the medieval period, for example, the portrayals of the death scene were often referred to as dormitio
(sleep). Other than the "deathbed scene" showing a dying person lying on a bed, the most frequent image of
death was that of the Virgin Mary. Phillipe Ariès, Images of Man and Death, trans., Janet Lloyd (Cambridge, MA.:
Harvard University Press, 1985), 94-96.
3. Ibid., 252.
4. See David E. Stannard, "Where All Our Steps are Tending: Death in the American Context," in Martha V. Pike
and Janice Gray Armstrong, eds., A Time to Mourn: Expressions of Grief in Nineteenth Century America, exh. cat.
(New York: The Museum of Stony Brook, 1980), 19-23.
Unidentified Photographer
Postmortem Portrait of a Child, circa 1855-1859
Ambrotype
Sixth Plate (2 ¾ x 3 ¼ inches)
Unidentified Photographer
Postmortem Portrait of a Child, circa 1855-1859
Ambrotype
Quarter Plate (3 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches)
Unidentified Photographer
Postmortem Portrait of a Child, circa 1860
Ambrotype
Sixth Plate (2 ¾ x 3 ¼ inches)