Victorian Post Mortem

Warning: Some of these photographs are not for the squeamish!
Americans and Europeans in the 1800's and early 1900's took beautiful and saddening pictures of their recently deceased family members.

I do not own any of these pictures.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• post
• mortem
• victorian
• memento
• mori
• dead

[irishoorah]

@Susanlucena in many ways, you are quite right...but also, you have to remember that back then, people depended on religion and many children learned to accept death much easier than our children might due to the constant reinforcement of God and Faith...often in 'old order' religion, it is constantly repeated that our bodies are but a shell which conceals the soul. Also, many families had the funeral right at home and some even bathed and dressed the bodies themselves with the children there

[1973ARTEMIDE]

Terrific...



[newbinaries]

I am not convinced that many of these children were dead when the photos were taken.

[Dopestarslove]

In some of the ones with more than one person,I cant tell which ones are dead.

[Susanlucena]

I don't wish to sound disrespectful, because I understand that photos came at a dear price in the Victorian times, so to have a photo taken was a major event for a family, and was done to preserve the memory of a loved one who passed away, but to have your young child posed with a deceased family member was, to me, cruel and abnormal. It must have been horrific for them. I could never even imagine forcing my child to do something like that. So sad and traumatic.

[opal4187]

 the photo of 1:28, that girl doesn't seem dead at all.

well in my opinion, she is simply natural in that photo, and I would never have guessed that she is in fact dead!

[babybookworm003]

@amibelileti thats the sad truth about back then is that it was not un common for an infant to die before his or her fifth birthday i'm glad thats diffrent

[Kalasnikolor]

@amibelileti be i bambini sono i primi ad andarsene

[amibelileti]

o my god that is so sad. so many babys

[wadyano]

@LadyLotus74 i assure you to each of those mothers it was devsatating. it might have been more commen but not less painful.