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The Language of the Dead: Victorian Funerary Symbolism

Presented by Laurel Hill Cemetery - The Underground Museum at Laurel Hill Cemetery

December 5, 2009

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Victorian Philadelphians loved visual symbolism, and even their simplest grave markers are likely to be ornamented by ivy (for eternal life), lilies (for resurrection) or hour glasses (for brevity of life). Oftentimes, the symbolism is both lavish and individualized. A civic reformer is memorialized with a bas-relief showing the Schuylkill Canal and the Philadelphia Water Works. A prison reformer is celebrated with a grand model of Moyamensing Prison. A shattered column, a cavalry officer’s sword and a pair of spurs mark the resting place of one of the first soldiers to die at the Battle of Little Big Horn, infamously known as Custer’s Last Stand. A mother who died in childbirth is compellingly depicted clasping her two dead babies. Nineteenth-century Philadelphians understood Laurel Hill not only as a cemetery, but also as a vast sculptural garden and retreat. Accordingly, they came by the thousands to read the symbolic messages that the dead had left for the living. The Language of the Dead, a walking tour of Laurel Hill Cemetery, will be expertly guided by Dr. Michael Brooks, a professor at West Chester University, former board member of the Friends of Laurel Hill, and longtime docent for the cemetery.