Graphic: Memento Mori Photographs

Zylphy

Private
Joined
Jun 15, 2011
Location
Baltimore, Maryland
No doubt many of you know about the practice of photographing dead loved ones; the pics are called Memento Mori (actually I guess it should be "Mementi Mori"?).

Apparently this became popular with the coming of photography and continued regularly as a way to remember the deceased until the 1920s. It is also my understanding that some hospitals offer this service even today for parents of stillborn infants.

Memento Mori photography seems to have had its heyday in the Early to Late Victorian Era and I am sure was much appreciated by those who could afford it, and for whom it was possible, during the War Between the States. I offer this thread with some of what to the best of my knowledge are Civil War Era examples.

I have purposely excluded all but two photos of deceased children; I believe that for general public viewing it would be needlessly graphic, and far too sad, to post a slew of them. I included the two that I did because I feel they capture not only the image of the deceased, but a really amazing emotional picture of the parents as well.

Links to many more of these kinds of photos exist; you need only Google the term, "Memento Mori Photography".

Here is a link, to start, with good general information: http://brightbytes.com/collection/memento.html

To me this really is a fascinating look at Victorian mourning practices.

Thanks,
Zylphy

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Thanks for the post Zylphy. I guess that the practice of photography Mementi Mori sort of was phased out a some point, but I do believe that the practice is still common at African-American funerals/wakes.

When I lived in Minnesota I made a trip to Northfield, where the James/Younger gang robbed the 1st National Bank there on Sept. 7, 1876. The robbery went terribly wrong and several of the gang members were shot and killed, others were hunted down and captured including Cole and Jim Younger who were sent to Stillwater prison.

Anyway, the bank still stands, and is now a museum with many artifacts/photos on display that had to do with the crime. Some of the dead gang members, Charlie Pitts, Clel Miller, and a couple of others were posed sitting up in a chair, eyes open, with sort of a sleepy, unfocused look to them, wounds covered up. They looked fairly normal except they were dead! That was kind of eerie, but that was the way these deceased criminal types were displayed back then. Many of them were posed along with the people who shot them standing proudly in the photo as well, usually smiling.

Lee
 
Thanks for the post Zylphy. I guess that the practice of photography Mementi Mori sort of was phased out a some point, but I do believe that the practice is still common at African-American funerals/wakes.

When I lived in Minnesota I made a trip to Northfield, where the James/Younger gang robbed the 1st National Bank there on Sept. 7, 1876. The robbery went terribly wrong and several of the gang members were shot and killed, others were hunted down and captured including Cole and Jim Younger who were sent to Stillwater prison.

Anyway, the bank still stands, and is now a museum with many artifacts/photos on display that had to do with the crime. Some of the dead gang members, Charlie Pitts, Clel Miller, and a couple of others were posed sitting up in a chair, eyes open, with sort of a sleepy, unfocused look to them, wounds covered up. They looked fairly normal except they were dead! That was kind of eerie, but that was the way these deceased criminal types were displayed back then. Many of them were posed along with the people who shot them standing proudly in the photo as well, usually smiling.

Lee

Wow; I know that must have been a bit weird to see. Yes, the photographs with the deceased with their eyes still open are pretty disturbing. I didn't know that Memento Mori photos were still an African-American funeral practice; that's cool! :smile: I'd imagine that many traditional African-American funeral practices are steeped in 19th and 20th century southern rituals. I remember going to a very traditional black funeral service when I worked for the government.... a girl my age had died of cancer and they had the service at a church in West Baltimore, complete with gospel music, mourners and much joy and clapping. It really was awesome, and just so much better than the usual very serious, stilted Episcopalian funerals I was used to! :smile:
 
Zylphy, sorry didn't mean to hijack your thread, please continue. I just wanted to post up these photos of some of the James/Younger gang killed in the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (also a movie with that title, starring Robert Duvall, Cliff Robertson). Notice how these guys were posed for photos, after their deaths. Frank and Jesse James escaped back to Missouri. Thanks for your indulgence.​





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Charles Pitts, killed in Northfield Bank Robbery
Photograph Collection 1876
Location no. por 21156 r1
Negative no. 96378​





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Charles Pitts, killed in Northfield Bank Robbery
Photographer: Sumner Studio
Photograph Collection 1876
Location no. por 21156 r2
Negative no. 96377​






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Clel Miller, killed in Northfield Bank Robbery
Photographer: Ira E. Sumner (1845-1918)
Photograph Collection, Carte-de-visite 1876
Location no. por 21158 r1
Negative no. 96376​





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Clel Miller and William Chadwell, killed in Northfield Bank Robbery
Photographer: Jacoby
Photograph Collection, Carte-de-visite 1876
Location no. por 21158 r2
Negative no. 96375​






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Monument at site of capture of Younger Brothers, LaSalle, Minnesota
Photograph Collection, Postcard ca. 1930
Location no. MW5.9 LS r1
Negative no. 49855​




http://collections.mnhs.org/visualr...ubject=Northfield (Minn.) Bank Robbery, 1876.
 
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I know a lady who is a very good artist, and one of the things she gets called in to do is draw portraits, usually in a hospital setting, of infants who have died.
 
Glorybound, no worries; these photos are great! :smile: Really definitely eerie, but so terribly evocative of the 19th century view of death. It seems to me that we were so much closer to death in those days, and so much less squeamish about cadavers and such. I wondered what the photos looked like when you mentioned them, so I am glad you were kind enough to post them. :smile:
 
I know a lady who is a very good artist, and one of the things she gets called in to do is draw portraits, usually in a hospital setting, of infants who have died.

It's very touching somehow that parents still want this done. I have no children, and don't plan on having any, but I can only imagine the agony a parent faces when a child dies. Hopefully a drawing or portait of the deceased child can be a part of the healing/ mourning process.
 
Below is a post mortem pic I posted on another forum not to long ago. The deceased girl is posed with her parents. A stand can just be seen at the base of her feet that she is straped to and then stiff metal wire would be used to pose the arms. Also note the eye's. The pupils a painted on the eye lids to appear as being open.
Edit: Sorry for the pic being so large. I couldn't figure how to resize it.
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Mosin
 
Wow. Thanks for the post Mosin. I thought the photos in my post were macacbre.... That is incredible, almost beyond belief that photos like the one you posted were actually taken. That's almost downright weird...pardon me. I doubt if I, as one of those parents, would derive any pleasure or consolation from viewing that at home, or wherever it might be. Geez almighty. Nevertheless, thank you for posting it.


Lee
 
Mosin, that is an amazing photograph and one I have not yet come across.

Again, to me it shows how much closer to death we were years ago, in that we spelled dead relatives set up in the parlor, kissed corpses at funerals, and posed our relations with ourselves like this. As a 21st century person I would totally not be able to do any of that!

Thank you for posting that; it's really very interesting!
 
It gets to me as rather morbid, but apparently that was done. We have nothing like that in our family records, which doesn't mean that some don't.

I have pictures of my grandfather's first family ... they all died, but the pictures were taken when they were still alive. Is this an ethnic thing?

I can understand the fascination of viewing the bodies of desparadoes, but of closely related corpses? Time to reevaluate the good old days.

And don't those folks appear to be a bit old to have a girl of that age? They must have been made of different stuff.
 
It gets to me as rather morbid, but apparently that was done. We have nothing like that in our family records, which doesn't mean that some don't.

I have pictures of my grandfather's first family ... they all died, but the pictures were taken when they were still alive. Is this an ethnic thing?

I can understand the fascination of viewing the bodies of desparadoes, but of closely related corpses? Time to reevaluate the good old days.

And don't those folks appear to be a bit old to have a girl of that age? They must have been made of different stuff.

Ole, as far as the the body in the parlor and kissing corpses, yeah, apparently we did do that in our family, at least accrding to what both of my parents have told me. My mother and father are both 80, so some of their habits tend to be a bit more old-fashioned than the folks of most people my age. As far as I know, no pics of us with dead relatives propped on, beside or near us are extant.

As far as it being an ethnic thing, it is my understanding that Memento Mori pics were done by whoever wanted it and could afford it, pretty much across the board and wherever in the world photographers worked, until the practice faded for the most part in the 1920s.

Again, my feeling is that people just weren't as removed from the physicality of illness and death like we are today. At least one scholar has posited that modern medicine and sanitation have actually made us more afraid of death as we now are so far removed from its in-your-face realities; id est, no dead people or animals in the streets; no births or deaths at home; not as many people living rurally and killing their own food, etc.

A good book on the subject of our changing relationship with mortality (albeit as it relates to why we love horror films, but I think the theory is solid), is The Thrill of Fear, by Walter Kendrick.
 
I agree a bit morbid, but I guess if you hadn't had a picture taken before of a loved one, you would want something, anything to remember them by..So I can see why.. For myself, I would do anything to have a recording of my fathers voice, lots of pictures, but nothing that has his voice... I guess its sort of the same thing..
 
This is an interesting thread. I think the morbidity of it is more a product of our 21st century thinking rather than the late 19th century's. Since photography was a luxury then, few photos of the deceased while alive would be available as momentos and keepsake. I can understand why folks that could afford it would do such a thing, especially in the case of a child. Today we have volumes dedicated to the living person, and there is really no need to have the final repose on record.
Wilber, I agree with you. It would be nice to have a recording of my Dad and Mom's voices.
 
The whole subject strikes me as very macabre, but I guess macabre is in the eye of the beholder. As a teenager I saw my grandfather on display in his funeral coffin and it appalled me to see him laying there dead as a doornail. From that day on I decided to be cremated when the time came. That said, I have no problem seeing the Younger brothers dead or Mussolini and his mistress hanging by piano wire on a pole.
 
Turner Ashby

In his hometown of Port Republic, VA is a strange memorial to a man who is still a local hero. In a house of the period on the main drag is a picture. When a visitor walks up a little ramp and looks inside you see a coffin propped up on saw horses inside is a life size photograph, of Confederate BG Turner Ashby a Confederate (or maybe ANV) battle flag is draped over the coffin.

Sorry I can't find a picture of this macabre scene. Maybe someone else might have better luck locating one.
 
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