1870s Post Mortem CDV Photo Child Little Girl Eyes Open Victorian Mourning Death

CL1INVREF

Here is a sweet post mortem CDV of a little girl posed with a distant look and eyes sunken. She’s posed sitting up. Great photographers mark on back

Post-mortem photography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is, at first glance, difficult to spot. Is a family member’s neck at a strange angle? Many are in a reclining position, slightly propped up to seem like they are supporting themselves.

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Americans in the 1800s were far more intimately acquainted with death than we are today. Most of this was out of necessity–before embalming procedures became popularized, it was the duty of the family to quickly prepare the body for a viewing and burial. Families would typically hold viewings in their own parlors at home, a tradition that later gave funeral parlors their name. The birth of the funeral industry in the early twentieth century and the growth of large, sanitized hospitals brought about a shift in the way Americans interacted with death.