Good Mourning America 08.08.2025

 

August 8, 2025

I think I'm funny...

But real talk, the subject of this article may not be suitable for some readers- we're going to be discussing death and dying as well as mourning practices in the antebellum period and how they changed in the wake of the Civil War. I'm going to include pictures of examples of what I'm talking about, and while you may not always be able to tell what is happening in these photos, to be safe I wanted to include an extra warning. If this isn't for you, then there is no harm in skipping this one.

I will talk to you later!

Disclaimer: This is a very big and broad topic and there is no way that I will be able to cover absolutely everything but I will do my best to cover the basics in a way that illustrates the traditional mourning rituals in antebellum America and how those were changed by the Civil War. Because this post is going to be primarily based off of research done for a paper I wrote for one of my classes, this is going to be structured a bit differently than most of my posts. More similar to my post on the Caryatids and repatriation, I think.

I've talked enough at you, so let's get into it!

Mourning Rituals- What are they?

Mourning Jewelry

    Mourning rituals, or "death-ways," are the cultural systems of behavior that surround mortuary practices; the way that individuals or communities grieve the loss of a family member or loved one. They are the methods that the living usr to cope and to help themselves transition between two phases of life, with and without their now passed loved one. Perhaps the most well known methods being mourning jewelry and mourning photography. The jewelry that I mention are often made from hair of the deceased and are associated with the Victorians (1837-1901) and the photographs are of those who are either on their death bed or are already passed. The photos especially served as a "tangible way for the living to keep the memory of a departed loved one alive and close at hand in times of need."

Post-Mortem Photography

    A trend that was popular was called the "beautification of death," which referred to those ritualized behaviors that helped to memorialize the dead. Popular culture had wide ranging impacts on those traditional behaviors among social groups- the model of this phenomena illustrated a large scale cultural trend. These trends can be reflected in material culture like the use of decorative funeral hardware and the increase in the memorialization post Civil War. In the antebellum and postbellum world mourning and grief were much more communal feelings where they tend to be more individualized today. Victorian mourning customs ended with World War One, as the casualty count continued to rise. However the Civil War only threw the country into a frenzy of passionate mourning, this frenzy was assisted by the co-current industrialization and commercialization of the funeral industry and photography. 

Who led the charge?

19th Century Mourning Parlor

    Traditionally women (female relatives, neighbors, professional women) were known as "watchers and layers."  They were the primary caregivers of the dead and practiced the "awful business" of cleaning and laying out the bodies of the deceased so they would be ready for viewing in their home. Women were allowed to do this work, and in many instances make a profession (and a profit) out of it because illness and dying were experiences had in the privacy of the home. Domesticity and femininity were woven tightly together and so they were almost intrinsically obliged to be the ones to take these duties on. This allowed them opportunities to make money and accrue material or social compensation for their work- in a time when many women were not afforded the ability to privately own property, this allowed for a degree of financial freedom.

What's this about the Civil War and Industrialization? 

    The Civil War, commonly accepted as the bloodiest war in American history, began on April 12, 1861 and ended on April 9, 1865. Approximately 750,000 people were killed, and while disease claims the most of those lives numerically, the change in technology (thank you industrialization) and a shift to total war increased the likelihood of death by other means. So now, what's total war? It is defined as "military conflict in which contenders are willing to make any sacrifice in lives and other resources to obtain a complete victory." Total war also usually included impacts on and contributions from the home front as well as the front line. Which means that no one goes unaffected by the conflict"

    The country had been in the early stages of an industrial revolution by the eve of the Civil War- while the South still predominantly depended on agriculture, the North was moving toward commercialization and manufacturing. Along with the growing industry came a growth in the mass production of material goods. The goods we're concerned with at the moment are funerary goods and photographs. The ability to reproduce these things at such a rapid (and cheap) rate allowed for anyone of social or economic status to purchase those goods or to have multiple photographs taken of themselves in a short period of time.

How did death-ways change?

    Death was now such a commonplace, expected experience that soldier who fought in the Civil War assumed new attitudes towards it. Additionally, there was no one there to provide wounded, dying, or dead soldiers with the care that was traditionally afforded to them. Women, those who had been the first professionals of the mortuary field, were largely barred from entry in the places that funeral directing and undertaking were practiced and perfected. Previously, women had begun the early work on understanding undertaking and embalming. The removal of internal organs, blocking of orifices, and applying of chemicals, filling cavities with charcoal and wrapping the body with alum covered cloth, as well as the understanding of how temperature affected the decay oof a body were all things practiced at and understood. But with the lack of women at the frontline, it was men who saw to the commercial professionalization of these methods and techniques.

    Death and dying largely moved out of the home and into hospitals and other public facilities. Which meant that women no longer had access, as these spaces were not within their domestic sphere of control. However this does not mean that women were pushed out of these practices all at once or completely. Rather women continued to participate in other ways; women could become nurses, wives and daughters could assist in family owned funeral businesses, and female beauticians visited these parlors to style the dead.

    While they lived, soldiers also had access to the growing populace of photographers who followed the battles of the Civil War. Previously, photographers of the dead were staged by the family and the photographer and allowed the remaining family to choose the way that the lost loved one was remembered. Now though, the soldiers who anticipated death daily and wanted to capture their visage as they were, had new accessibility to do just that. Because of the increase in industrialization, reproduction of photographs was able to be done cheaply. Soldiers could get pictures of themselves taken however many times it took for them to get an angle that they liked. And again, because of how cheap industrialization made photography, everyone could afford this if they so wanted.

Old City Cemetery, Lynchburg VA.

    The Civil War bolstered the publicity of death and mourning, no longer was it something done privately. It became a new "social value" in the face of a national crisis. Part of this includes the government's care for fallen soldiers and honoring the common soldier. In this vein, the country saw the creatio
n of national cemeteries like Arlington. And while cemeteries in general can function as a rhetorical space (meaning it is a space that is both physical and conceptual), they are also public spaces for the memorialization of lost loved ones, not just fallen soldiers. And so in the way that grave markers can be made small and easily overlooked, they can also be made to be large and eye-catching, once again emphasizing the change in grief from something private to something public.

And that's it! That's the post! I'm sure you noticed the plethora of links scattered throughout- those are all the sources I referenced when writing this, and if you have questions feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer or to direct you to a source that might be able to help. I will mention, most (if not all) the sources were found on JSTOR so you may need an account to access them if you're interested in reading them in their entirety, but they may also be available elsewhere for free. 

Like I said at the before we started, this is not a comprehensive history of mourning rituals. It's kind of like an introductory spiel. An info dump. So, I have no doubt that I may have missed things or that there are people who are more entrenched in the topic than I am. But this was my take on it, my research for a paper that I wrote for a class. Please be kind and always take a chance to dive deeper into something that interests you.

Until next time, keep learning and exploring!

Anne