For more information see: Updike, John. "Facing Death: Our Ancestors Look Gravely and Steadily upon Things That We Cannot." American Heritage May-June 1992. Web. http://www.americanheritage.com/content/facing-death. Volume 43, Issue 3

The article is a review of the book, “Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America” by Dr. Stanley B. Burns on the topic of postmortem photography from 1842 to 1925. While the subject is macabre to us, today, Updike places it tenderly within the context of the times. While it’s certainly not a nominee for the “feel-good book of the summer”, I can’t help but feel closer to these people from the past after reading Updikes article.

It was common for a time to take photographs of children who had died. In many cases, the parents simply hadn’t had one made yet. American Heritage had a poignant article about this practice several years ago. As a parent, it is easy to see wanting to have an image – any image – of your child. I suspect that this picture was either looked at a million time or just a couple. These really tug at your heart. Was it taken in Atlanta?

This picture breaks my heart! The tightness of the young mother's lips shows how hard it was for her to keep from crying. This certainly would have been only a day or two after the death of the child. I also have a picture of a young woman with a dead baby, from about 1902, which was of the brother of my grandfather, being held by his aunt. This picture was obviously taken decades earlier, but I think it is probably the same story; that a young child died, never having had any kind of likeness made of him/her, so they had one made before burial. The one I have was made to look as if the baby was only sleeping. This one doesn't appear as if they were making any attempt to hide the fact that the baby was dead. It was a common occurrence, until recently, for babies to die, but that didn't make it any easier for mothers.