1 00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:03,960 Speaker 1: When you think about the eighteen hundreds Gilded Age aside 2 00:00:03,960 --> 00:00:07,000 Speaker 1: big fan here, there's something a little eerie about the 3 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:10,640 Speaker 1: way they approached life, and honestly, it was weirder than 4 00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:14,040 Speaker 1: you think. I'm Patty Steele. Why didn't you pop over 5 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:16,799 Speaker 1: to my house for a death party? That's next on 6 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:25,440 Speaker 1: the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Honestly, we look 7 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: at the kind of cool but also kind of creepy 8 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,680 Speaker 1: way Victorian architecture, interior design, and fashion looked that intense, 9 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:38,280 Speaker 1: dark Gothic style, and their literature, even love poems. It 10 00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:42,280 Speaker 1: seemed really morbid. But stop and think about it. While 11 00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:46,360 Speaker 1: the world around them was getting modernized with things like trains, cameras, 12 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:50,960 Speaker 1: telegraph communications, early cars, and of course most especially the 13 00:00:51,040 --> 00:00:55,720 Speaker 1: light bulb, medicine was still in its infancy. Because of that, 14 00:00:56,040 --> 00:01:00,920 Speaker 1: death was a constant presence in most people's lives, especially 15 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:05,560 Speaker 1: in cities, was rampant. Women frequently died in childbirth. But 16 00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:08,240 Speaker 1: here's a stat that at least it blew me away. 17 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:10,720 Speaker 1: I think it'll blow you away too. In the US 18 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:14,840 Speaker 1: and Europe, forty six percent of children died before the 19 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:17,800 Speaker 1: age of five, So it kind of had to look 20 00:01:17,840 --> 00:01:20,680 Speaker 1: death in the face and maybe even find a way 21 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:24,080 Speaker 1: to get comfortable with it, believe it or not. Popular 22 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:28,720 Speaker 1: pastimes in the eighteen hundreds were death parties. If somebody died, 23 00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:32,440 Speaker 1: folks would get together, drink wine or sherry and plenty 24 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:35,600 Speaker 1: of it, and munch on little cakes wrapped in paper 25 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:40,280 Speaker 1: with poems that celebrated the dead person's life. Viewing parties 26 00:01:40,319 --> 00:01:43,080 Speaker 1: with the deceased usually took place, but not in a 27 00:01:43,120 --> 00:01:46,480 Speaker 1: funeral home, in your living room, or sometimes with a 28 00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:49,040 Speaker 1: dead person propped up in their own bed as if 29 00:01:49,080 --> 00:01:52,360 Speaker 1: they were sleeping. They'd be laid out with big blocks 30 00:01:52,360 --> 00:01:55,600 Speaker 1: of ice underneath to keep the body as fresh as possible. 31 00:01:56,120 --> 00:01:59,400 Speaker 1: But it didn't stop there. They'd often hire a photographer 32 00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:01,840 Speaker 1: to come and let those that wanted to get their 33 00:02:01,880 --> 00:02:05,560 Speaker 1: pictures taken with the departed. Often when families lost a 34 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:08,880 Speaker 1: baby or a child, they had death portraits taken to 35 00:02:08,960 --> 00:02:12,720 Speaker 1: remember the little one. For adults that had passed the morning, 36 00:02:12,760 --> 00:02:16,760 Speaker 1: portraits would usually involve making the corpse look as lifelike 37 00:02:16,840 --> 00:02:20,160 Speaker 1: as possible. In some the person would appear to be 38 00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:23,480 Speaker 1: standing up, or maybe sitting in the parlor with their family, 39 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,480 Speaker 1: or even sitting at the dining room table like they're 40 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:31,160 Speaker 1: having a meal together, so it looked lively. As spiritualism 41 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:34,800 Speaker 1: became a fad, some living folks had their picture taken 42 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:37,880 Speaker 1: and then had a sort of transparent photo of the 43 00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:41,120 Speaker 1: deceased laid over it, so it looked like a ghost 44 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:44,200 Speaker 1: of their loved one was standing with them. A guy 45 00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:47,280 Speaker 1: named William Mummler was a famous photographer in the mid 46 00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:52,280 Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, and he claimed he was actually photographing real ghosts. 47 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:55,440 Speaker 1: Mary Todd Lincoln had one of these made by him 48 00:02:55,480 --> 00:03:00,280 Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two, with Abe Lincoln superimposed behind her 49 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:03,560 Speaker 1: and his hands on her shoulders. She believed it was 50 00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:08,200 Speaker 1: really Abe and she loved it. Victorians also frequently had 51 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,200 Speaker 1: death masks made, where plaster was slathered on the corpse's 52 00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,480 Speaker 1: face to make a lifelike copy of it as a momento. 53 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:19,480 Speaker 1: Death was not something they kept quiet about. It was 54 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:23,120 Speaker 1: a very public event, and how you responded to death 55 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:27,560 Speaker 1: was an important social obligation. Widows were expected to wear 56 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:31,160 Speaker 1: all black clothing and everything else for two years or more, 57 00:03:31,600 --> 00:03:34,480 Speaker 1: while husbands who lost their wives had to dress in 58 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:37,120 Speaker 1: all black, but only for three months. They had to 59 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,760 Speaker 1: find another wife, and their fascination with death, and the 60 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:45,360 Speaker 1: occult crossed over into purely social events as well. One 61 00:03:45,400 --> 00:03:47,520 Speaker 1: thing that was all the rage in the mid eighteen 62 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:53,120 Speaker 1: hundreds mummy unwrapping parties. Yeah, it's exactly what you're thinking. 63 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:57,240 Speaker 1: Wealthy people would buy Egyptian mummies, and they bought them 64 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:01,600 Speaker 1: by the hundreds, allegedly for scientific purposes, and then they'd 65 00:04:01,600 --> 00:04:04,520 Speaker 1: throw a huge party for all their friends, either at 66 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:08,880 Speaker 1: a hospital, a university, or often in their magnificent homes. 67 00:04:09,480 --> 00:04:12,680 Speaker 1: They'd have the unwrapping of the mummy cloth, followed by 68 00:04:12,720 --> 00:04:16,479 Speaker 1: a doctor who specialized in anatomy coming in and doing 69 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:20,040 Speaker 1: an autopsy for the crowd of partiers who were looking on. 70 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:24,600 Speaker 1: Maybe even follow that up with a seance. Mummy unwrappings 71 00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:28,800 Speaker 1: were done for both entertainment and also scientific purposes. One 72 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:33,040 Speaker 1: really famous doctor of Egyptology turned it into a really 73 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:37,360 Speaker 1: big business. He sold himself as an expert in mummy unwrapping, 74 00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:41,360 Speaker 1: and he held dramatic unwrapping events, both for medical scholars 75 00:04:41,760 --> 00:04:45,160 Speaker 1: as well as for high society types. And there's more. 76 00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,440 Speaker 1: One of the weirdest uses for mummies in the Victorian 77 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:52,320 Speaker 1: era was grinding them into a powder for a prescription 78 00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:57,000 Speaker 1: medicine called mummia supposedly a great medical cure for all 79 00:04:57,080 --> 00:04:59,640 Speaker 1: kinds of things. And if you were rich enough to 80 00:04:59,680 --> 00:05:02,960 Speaker 1: have your own mummy unwrapping party, then you could take 81 00:05:03,040 --> 00:05:06,840 Speaker 1: pieces of the mummy afterward, have a ground up and 82 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:09,800 Speaker 1: give it to your guests as a party favor. They 83 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,200 Speaker 1: in turn would rub it on wounds or even make 84 00:05:13,240 --> 00:05:16,400 Speaker 1: a tea out of it. Yeah. As weird as all 85 00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:19,440 Speaker 1: this sounds, you have to understand what it must have 86 00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:22,159 Speaker 1: been like to live in a time when death was 87 00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:26,120 Speaker 1: a constant occurrence, could be daily for some people. You 88 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:29,400 Speaker 1: had to be a little numb to it. Last summer, 89 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:32,600 Speaker 1: I was walking through a little churchyard in Pennsylvania on 90 00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:36,640 Speaker 1: the countryside, and I stopped at one family plot. The 91 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,839 Speaker 1: parents and several of their children who lived to adulthood 92 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:44,560 Speaker 1: all had large stones, but there were also six tiny headstones, 93 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:48,200 Speaker 1: each maybe a foot tall, round on the top, one 94 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:51,640 Speaker 1: next to the other, all for the couple's six children 95 00:05:52,200 --> 00:05:55,400 Speaker 1: never made it past the age of four. I hope 96 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:58,960 Speaker 1: you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. 97 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:01,240 Speaker 1: I would love it if you you'd subscribe or follow 98 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:05,640 Speaker 1: for free to get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel 99 00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:07,600 Speaker 1: free to dm me if you have a story you'd 100 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,520 Speaker 1: like me to take a deeper look at. On Facebook, 101 00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:17,279 Speaker 1: It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm 102 00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:21,880 Speaker 1: Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, 103 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:25,920 Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer 104 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:29,280 Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new 105 00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:32,840 Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out 106 00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:36,320 Speaker 1: to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram 107 00:06:36,520 --> 00:06:39,520 Speaker 1: at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. 108 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:42,880 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the 109 00:06:42,960 --> 00:06:45,919 Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.