Victorian Postmortem Photography: There’s More Than Meets the Eye

The invention of photography in the first half of the 19th century had a powerful impact on the Victorian Era. I briefly describe early photographic processes (especially the daguerreotype), explain how and why postmortem photography became a common Victorian-Era practice, and look at some recent controversy surrounding it. ***** References Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “Outline and Shadow.” https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/arts-letters/outline-and-shadow Carlton, Genevieve. “27 Victorian Death Photos — And The Disturbing History Behind Them.” https://allthatsinteresting.com/victorian-death-photos DeVelvis, Melissa. “Death, Immortalized: Victorian Post-Mortem Photography.” https://www.clarabartonmuseum.org/post-mortem-photography/ Heichelbech, Rose. “The Truth about Victorian Post-Mortem Photographs.” https://liveplayeat.com/victorian-post-mortem-photographs/ Sontag, Susan, quoted by Leslie Camhi. “Memento Mori.” https://www.villagevoice.com/2006/06/13/memento-mori/ Sussex Photo History. “The Daguerreotype Process.” http://photohistory-sussex.co.uk/dagprocess.htm Vatomsky, Sonya. “Clearing Up Some Myths About Victorian ‘Postmortem’ Photographs.” https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/victorian-post-mortem-photographs West, Nancy. “Pictures of Death.” https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/pictures-of-death/534060/ ***** Email: [email protected] Twitter: https://twitter.com/victorianvarie1 Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/marisadf13 I’d greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate this podcast on Spotify, or leave a review on Apple Podcasts, as that will help this podcast reach more listeners! Also, I want to give a huge THANK YOU to Jason and Lisa of the Designated Quizzers podcast for all of their support of this show! You can check out their latest episode here (or wherever you listen!): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/designated-quizzers-podcast/id1598591568?i=1000547098163