Death Culture
Throughout the nineteenth century, America was immersed in a culture of death. Commonly referenced as “The Cult of Mourning,” this era and its individuals personified death through an elaborate and complex culture. Citizens, especially urban gentiles, were expected to follow a strict protocol of mourning rituals. This protocol included intricate guidelines for proper mourning etiquette and proper burial. Both Queen Victoria and Mary Todd Lincoln embodied these death virtues.
Suffering the early loss of her husband, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria immersed herself in grief for sixty-seven years until her own demise in January 1901. Throughout this intense period of mourning, Queen Victoria ordered servants to lay out Prince Albert’s clothing and shaving utensils every day. She also slept with one of Albert’s nightshirts every night while underneath a postmortem photograph of him.
While Queen Victoria grieved the loss of her husband, across the Atlantic, another woman, Mary Todd Lincoln, mourned the early loss of both her husband and her children. Mary, unlike Queen Victoria whose children all survived to adulthood, lost almost all her children before the tragic death of her husband. In February of 1850, Mary lost her three-year-old son Edward to consumption. Then, in February of 1862, her son William died presumably from typhoid fever. After the death of William, Mary became consumed with her grief. She spent weeks in her bedroom weeping and refused to be comforted. As Mary became more inconsolable, Lincoln eventually showed her the Washington Lunatic Asylum from a window and said, “Mother, do you see that large white building on the hill yonder? Try and control your grief, or it will drive you mad, and we may have to send you there” (DeLorme, 27-28). Mary continued to mourn her losses until her own death on July 16, 1882.
Although both Mary Todd Lincoln and Queen Victoria suffered immense grief in the loss of loved ones, they both influenced America’s society and fashion culture by infusing a philosophy of mourning dress and etiquette. This philosophy would prevail until the early twentieth century. However, one death custom that continues today is the use of death notices and obituaries.
For over two hundred years, American newspapers have notified its public of a citizen’s death. Either in the form of an obituary or death notice, these announcements commemorated and imbedded a deceased’s death into public memory. Although they appear to be relatively simple, these notices and obituaries provide a deeper understanding of how society viewed death and the larger death culture.
For this digital project, the objective of analyzing death notices and obituaries is to gain an understanding of how these death announcements demonstrate the growing prominence of the funeral industry and the eventual transition of this extravagant affair from the affluent to the working class in nineteenth century Milwaukee. Through the use of visualization tools, a nuanced analysis is discovered.
