Momento Mori & Fake News
To continue in the spirit of Halloween, and since I mentioned it a couple posts ago when I was telling you about lurid Lisbon, I thought I would discuss the cheerful topic of Victorian postmortem photography with you this week.
As we all know, death rates were pretty high in the 19th century, and the average Victorian family was far more inured to the fragility of life than we are today. Sadly, infant mortality was a big problem.
Surprisingly (for 21st century folks who mince around the issue), the Victorians dealt with the reality of death pretty head on. They collected various forms of memento mori to celebrate and remember their dead… and some Victorians employed photographers to photograph the corpses of their loved ones… sometimes as they appeared in life.
Take this picture for example:
This is a picture of two sisters. One is dead and one is alive. But which is which?!?!?! Folks say that the standing girl is actually deceased. She’s being held up by a stand–and look at the discolouration of her hands!!!!!! Creeeeeepy, huh?!?!!?
I’m glad I decided to re-examine this topic because with a little research, I have discovered that I HAVE BEEN LIVING A LIE for the past few years since my ‘Victorian Death’ course. BOTH THESE GIRLS ARE ALIVE!!!! As are all of the standing subjects of supposed death photography floating around/coursing through the veins of the despicable internet.
Interest in postmortem pics really flared up around the time I was reading my masters, and apparently, a whole slew of photographs of the living were misidentified as death photography to sate the modern masses. And we studied them in class!
The truth is, whilst Victorian postmortem photography is definitely a thing, the prevalence of these photographs has been blown way out of proportion and the nature of the pictures has been skewed. Mostly, there is a prevailing misconception that dead bodies were capable of being held upright in stands or frames to achieve eerie life-like standing poses. And sometimes their eyes were painted on to look open and real.
The truth is that these stands were actually used to hold LIVING bodies still (to help get a non-blurry image with the slow shutter speeds) and would not be capable of holding up limp and lifeless bodies. Nor would a body be able to to be posed in rigor mortis. I mean, this makes total sense and seems really obvious when you think about it. Duh. The notion ludicrous. Really. When you think about it. THINK ABOUT IT!
There is some scholarly work out there (not much!) debunking the myths surrounding these photographs, but I think the funniest thing is the presence of this entire website devoted to setting the record straight. These curators are on a noble crusade to correct the lies propagated by Buzzfeed and the like. Tangentially, this is my favourite part from their Q&A section:
Q: What do they mean by “Victorian” anyway? Does that just mean old times?
A: No [you idiot] Victorians were the people who lived during the reign of Queen Victoria of England. It was the period of Queen Victoria’s reign from 20 June 1837 until her death, on 22 January 1901. As far as postmortem photos go, sometimes people tend to bend these dates a bit. And yes, people who lived during this time in America were also called “Victorians”.
(Okay, the brackets above might be my own addition to this direct quote. But UGH. The combining of all historical periods into the category of ‘olden times’ makes my blood boil and my skin crawl. Old times indeed!)
Anyway, their crusade is necessary. The more I search, the more appalled I am about all the click-bait misinformation on this subject (at the top of all searches!)! I think it’s both insulting to living subjects in the photos and to Victorian culture in general. Even sources like the BBC have supported death photography lies! They reported that the girl on the far left is dead in this photo below… but really she’s just having a bad day and closed her eyes!
Authentic Victorian postmortem photography features sitting or recumbent bodies often in the guise of sleep–closed eyes, peaceful. And infants are especially common subjects. This is so so so sad and might seem grotesque, but you have to look at it from the perspective of a Victorian parent. If their child died super young, they likely would not yet have any photographs of the baby. A postmortem photograph–in a peaceful, light-soaked environment–would provide parents with a lasting positive memory. The photographs would be printed on small cards one could hold in the palm of their hand as a form of intimate and tangible contact with the subject.
I think the notion is really more poignant than macabre. I also think that Victorians had a much healthier relationship with death than we do.
Evidently, these days people on eBay are able to charge more money for Victorian photographs if the subjects are supposedly dead… so, of course, they are scamming the unsuspecting public who has readily bought into the myth of the standing and life-like death photograph.
Interestingly (to me), these modern hoaxes remind me of what happened with Spirit Photography back in olden times–just kidding, back in the 19th century. Photography was obviously a revolutionary invention when it came on the scene in 1839. Unlike paintings or other artistic representations, for Victorians, photographs expressed reality, truth, and facts. So when amateur photographer William Mumbler accidentally developed this double exposure (below) in the 1860s, people were immediately like, ‘That is 100% the ghost of your dead cousin.’
Mumbler was like, ‘Sure, whatever you say!’–and thus the booming business of Spirit Photography was born. Mumbler was eventually discredited and died penniless (people started to recognise living members of the community in his fake photos–whoops!), but his scam lived on throughout the 19th century.
It’s funny (sad) to think how little, as humans, we have actually changed in the intervening 100 years or so. We still look at things, like these supposed postmortem photographs, and see what we want to believe is the truth. And then mock Victorians for being ‘weird’ and ‘morbid’!
You’re weird and morbid, mate!
Ahem, anyway, until next time: KEEP IT REAL, KIDS.
xWG // @dazeandweekes // @weekes
Sources of truth:
https://dealer042.wixsite.com/post-mortem-photos
https://www.skepticink.com/incredulous/2016/06/19/myth-victorian-post-mortem-photography/
Winter-Maker 
Well, I cannot tell you how relieved I am to learn the truth of this! Since you were the first to tell me about the “dead” photos (I guess when you were taking that disingenuous course from some disingenuous professor), I have not slept a wink! Thanks. Very informative. And yes fake news is timeless evidently. Don’t know why they offfered that journalism ethics course I took in college—-back in the old times! XO
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I hope you are finally able to get some sleep after 3 years!! Yes, the olden days obviously span from about 1200 – 1990, so unfortunately it is accurate to classify your college days as ‘old times’. Some of your college buddies must surely have dabbled in similar death photography?
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Very informative Ms Weekes! You are an excellent history teacher Dxxx Sent from my iPhone
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Why thank you! Have to keep spreading the good word about my beloved Victorians! Thanks for reading, Deena xxx
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Terrifically drôle essay on a dark subject. Well done.
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Why thank you, Ed! And thank you for all your noble legwork. FYI – there is also a death photography vigilante on Instagram who immediately commented ‘This is not a postmortem image’ on my photo of the sisters before bothering to read my caption that indicated as much… or, ya know, my entire post devoted to the fact that IT IS NOT A POSTMORTEM IMAGE. The topic is really heating things up!
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Postmortem photography has always intrigued me, but now I know I’ve been duped many times over! This was fascinating.
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Glad to burst your bubble! Just kidding… sorry to burst your bubble but glad to get the word out 🙂 Super interesting subject, I think. Thanks for reading, Christine!
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And I thought the Russians and FOX were the inventors of fake news..although that’s not to say that Russians of years gone by never got a bit snap happy with dead bodies. Perhaps the rumors of all those folks in old timey photos being dead was because once they got done with the loooong photo shoot they wished they were dead.
As far as the real death photos go, I’m wondering if there was an on-call Dead Person Photography Studio that could come to your home at the drop of a hat (or at the drop of a human), because, you know, they didn’t have a way to keep bodies smelling fresh back then. Add a bit of decaying grannie to the length of time it took to “take” a photo and, well, I just hope they kept the windows open.
Thanks for the history lesson and for your in-depth investigation into this scandal! Now I’m going to examine the dead-person postcard I have to see how real it is.
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Haha no doubt! It’s no wonder all the kids look so bored and half-dead in most of the photos.
The photographers pretty much were on call to rush over for death sessions! The preservation of the bodies is another big factor why so many of those photos are obviously living humans–like… of course the Victorians didn’t have some magic method of preserving corpses that well! Ugh, no kidding about the windows… must have been prettttttty grim.
Ohhh dead-person postcard?? Hint: If they are standing, have open eyes, and are waving at the camera, don’t be fooled!!!
Thanks for reading!
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You have to wonder if they doped the kids to get them to stay still that long. No, my dead guy definitely looks dead…he’s not even trying to sit up. It looks like it’s from Mexico, or at least from a land of sombrero-wearing hombres. Wait, maybe this dead guy was serving as a piñata? 😵
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Hahaha 😲 I see, interestingggg. Several pics of Mexican origin came up in my searches – would be interesting to compare their culture of death photography to the Victorians in England!
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Hmmm…how heavily did Victorian culture influence the Mexicans? I can just hear the Mexican revolutionaries asking if they’re wearing enough black and stopping the fighting for tea and biscuits. 😂
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Haha well exactly – interesting that those practices were happening in parallel, with very little other cultural crossover! 😮
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Fascinating! I’d actually never heard of the idea of “propped up” death photos – just as well, since you’ve now debunked the entire notion! As you say, when you think about it, it really makes no sense at all! The idea of wrestling a corpse into a standing pose and painting on open eyes is probably a bit much for anyone. Then again, I have seen memento mori pictures before where the subject is unmistakably no longer with us, as they’re shown in their coffins. Maybe that’s too far the other way? 🤔
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Ohhhh good hear you were previously immune to Buzzfeed lists like ‘Top 13 Dead Victorian Photos’! I mean, can you imagine? It would take at least 3 able-bodied people to lift and buckle in an adult corpse. I like the caption on one photo on the debunking website that says something like, ‘Not even Disney could paint those eyes on a baby’ haha! Yes, the ones in the coffin are definitely the easiest to identify… therefore people seem to take less of an interest in them… how booooooring, a death picture of a dead person!
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I know! SNORE! Mind you, with the Victorians’ love of gadgets, I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of some sort of complicated system of pulleys and harnesses for holding a body in a lifelike pose for one last picture had occurred to someone… 🤔
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So true. Someone probably even designed one to hang from a chatelaine — always at the ready!!!
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Haha! Of course! That reminds me… Must put “chatelaine” at the very top of my Christmas list! 😀
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Well done! That went from creepy to righteous (in a good way) in a snap! Continue on, Defender of Victorians!
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Hahaha thanks! It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it!
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Fascinating!
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