Changing Death Ways in Victorian America

By 1860, Victorians had come to dominate the American cultural landscape. The working class sought for most of the century to emulate them, while the wealthy used their advantages to set themselves apart with material goods and selectively followed Victorian rules to appear sophisticated. However, Victorian cultural dominance was severely challenged by the Civil War. The harsh realities of war changed Victorian values and left many searching for ways to cope. In few areas was this more apparent than in attitudes toward death. Victorians who entered the 1860s romanticizing death found themselves appalled by grim depictions of mangled corpses in photographs of the era. Looking for a new direction, they readily embraced the Industrial and Consumer Revolutions in the decades after the war to reshape how death and dying were observed, how corpses were cared for, and how cemetery art memorialized the dead.

Bio – Derek Maxfield

Derek Maxfield is a former journalist, radio personality, actor, playwright, director, and award-winning professor of history (retired). Twice awarded the State University of New York’s highest system-level honor, Derek was the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019 and the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2013. His research interests include Victorian deathways and 19th century politics and culture. Maxfield has written for Emerging Civil War since 2015 and has written two titles for the ECW book series – Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous Civil War Prison Camp – Elmira, NY (Savas Beatie, 2020) and Man of Fire: Willliam Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War (Savas Beatie: 2023).

Maxfield lives near Rochester, NY, with his wife Jess, four cats, basset hound, King Charles cavalier spaniel, and a python. He hopes to soon acquire a Bengal tiger cub (subject to his wife’s approval).