Postmortem Photos, When Life and Death Lived Under the Same Roof. By G.C. Stevens

 

Photo courtesy of Gary Shamrock collection .

Cambridge, Iowa 

 The smell of wood smoke hung in the air; the old towns have their own ways. The past still lives here: old bank buildings, old brick jailhouses, old houses near the square. A railroad town, once bigger than now. The sign painted on the side of an old brick building read: The Big Store—Furniture—Undertaking—Rugs—Linoleum—S. E. Cooper and Sons.

A time when undertaking became a necessary side hustle and full time American profession.

 —G.C. Stevens 

An enhanced version of an advertisement painted on the side of an old brick building, 

See the faded original at the end of this article.

 Photo taken by the author in Cambridge Iowa

One of the lesser talked about aspects of living on the early frontier, even in small towns, up until the late 1800's. Is how families reconciled the death of loved ones. Thoughtfully speaking, it could be said that technology, legality, and the pace of life, not only made it more difficult for families to deal with the death of the departed, and it became more expedient to hand their loved ones over to morticians. The 1800's (and before) was however a very different era. A time in which death and life resided together as a fact of living. And the modern convenience of undertaking services, did not begin in earnest until the civil war created a need for trained and ready men and women to assume the roles of caretaker of the dead. But before that time, consider this, that many early homes were built with a room, which we now we refer to as "the living room." This particular space was at one time called a "parlor," and was in fact, not only living space, but rather the parlor where family members would lay out the dead for visitation and funeral after a death in the family had occurred.  For those of us living in current times, it is indeed difficult and sometimes perceived morbid for us to view such a lifestyle in connection with our relationship with the dead, but in those days, it was a very normal for family members to be close to the death in its final stages and the family would have the responsibility of preparing and interring the deceased.                                                               

                                                Enter Photography

In the autumn of 1839, the invention of the daguerreotype photo in America radically altered how the nation recorded its history and conceptualized its memory. Invented in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, this pioneering process utilized a polished, silver-coated copper plate sensitized with iodine vapors and developed over heated mercury to lock in a highly detailed, mirror-like image. While European audiences viewed the invention as a marvelous scientific novelty, Americans embraced as part of their culture.

​Prior to the 1840s, having a personal likeness recorded was a luxury exclusive to the wealthy who could afford commissioned oil paintings. The rapid proliferation of the daguerreotype galleries, pioneered by figures like Mathew Brady in New York and the partnership of Albert Southworth and Joseph Pennel, (also see Josiah Hawes who was a later partner) in Boston, for the first time, average working-class citizens could obtain an exact, enduring "likeness" of themselves or their families for the price of a few dollars. By the 1850s, the mainstreamed the medium had become so deeply woven into the American identity that international commentators frequently referred to it as "the American process."

 Postmortem Photography

​Beyond documenting the living, early American photography served as a profound and intimate partner in navigating the era's high mortality rates through the profession and practice of post-mortem photography. In the 19th century, death was a highly visible domestic reality for family members. Medical science was limited, epidemics were common, and families routinely cared for the dying and prepared corpses for burial within their own parlors. Because the photographic process was still relatively expensive and required long, perfectly still exposure times, many individuals—particularly infants and young children—passed away without ever having had their picture taken while alive.

​Consequently, mourning families frequently commissioned photographers to capture a final, permanent visual record of their deceased loved ones. Far from being viewed as macabre, these images were deeply cherished sentimental keepsakes. Early post-mortem photographs were thoughtfully staged to reflect the Victorian concept of the "Last Sleep." Deceased children were often photographed resting peacefully in cribs, tucked into couches with a favorite teddy bear, or cradled in the arms of grieving parents.

​To heighten the illusion of life, photographers employed various delicate techniques. Because living subjects often blurred due to micro-movements during long exposures, the deceased—who remained perfectly still—frequently appeared with striking, crystalline clarity in the finished image. Photographers would sometimes gently prop open the eyelids of the deceased or meticulously hand-paint lifelike pupils and a soft pink flush onto the cheeks of the cold tin or silver plates.

​By the dawn of the American Civil War, newer, cheaper and reproducible mediums like ambrotypes, tintypes, and paper albumen prints replaced the singular daguerreotype. As the 20th century approached, the rise of the commercial funeral industry and hospital care sanitized death, removing the corpse from the family home. Concurrently, the invention of affordable snapshot cameras meant families captured abundance of images during a person's lifetime, causing the cultural necessity for post-mortem photos to gracefully fade away. Today, these early photographs remain a poignant testament to a young nation's ingenuity and its tender, deeply intimate relationship with memory and loss.

Photo courtesy Gary Shamrock collection

Photo courtesy of Gary Shamrock collection.

Postmortem photo, photographer unknown, approx. 1850

Postmortem photography took a strange twist when photographers such as the famed Arizona photographer C.S. Fly went into the field to capture photos of the life of the wild west. Based in Tombstone, Arizona, C.S. Fly documented the peace treaty between Apache Chief Geronimo and the U.S. Army in 1886, as well as other iconic moments of the Old West. Many images were captured that showed the publics hangings and the results of clashes between law enforcement and famous bandits. The photos below are copies from the authors collection.

C.S. Fly's Gallery in Tombstone Arizona, photo public domain

Death photo of the Clanton and McClaurys after the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881

Tom McClaury, Frank McClaury and Billy Clanton

Members of the Dalton gang killed in Coffeyville KS

Left to right, Bill Powers, Bob Dalton, Grat Dalton and Dick Broadwell

​References

​Gillespie, S. K. (2016). The Early American Daguerreotype: Cross-Currents in Art and Technology. The MIT Press.

​The Daguerreian Era and Early American Photography on Paper, 1839–60. (2004, October 1). The Metropolitan Museum of Art. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/the-daguerreian-era-and-early-american-photography-on-paper-1839-1860

​Post-Mortem Photography: An Overview. (n.d.). University of Michigan Clements Library. https://clements.umich.edu/exhibit/death-in-early-america/post-mortem-overview/

https://www.stevehuffphoto.com/2014/01/06/strange-past-post-mortem-photography-by-steve-huff/?amp=1

A faded wall advertisement for the business of  S.E. Cooper and Sons, Cambridge Iowa.

Photo by the author.