Sunday Related Post: Post Mortem Photography:

"Postmortem photographs like this were taken more than any other kind of photograph in the Victorian era — especially in the U.S."
"These photographs were a common aspect of American culture, a part of the mourning and memorialization process. Surviving families were proud of these images and hung them in their homes, sent copies to friends and relatives, wore them as lockets or carried them as pocket mirrors. Nineteenth-century Americans knew how to respond to these images. Today there is no culturally normative response to postmortem photographs."

via Mentalfloss.com
(Click the pic for more!)