Woman Holding a Sprig of Vitex Blooms, Reading Bible, in Full Mourning_Anniston, Alabama

            A woman is posed sitting at a table, reading a bible, while holding a sprig of vitex (also called chaste tree, common in the South). Vitex is a symbol of chastity, purity, and vitality. 

The custom of mourning wear was a reflection of values around death, gender roles, and societal order within the middle and upper classes in American society. In America, the social practice was influenced by Queen Victoria's prolonged grief for her husband, Prince Albert.

The "brunt" of the custom fell most heavily onto women and fell into stages of grief depending on how close the relationship of the decedent was to the woman. 

This woman, taken from a studio in Anniston, Alabama, around 1890--1895, shows a woman in full/heavy/deep mourning, probably for a husband or one of her children. 

She is wearing a full crape (or crêpe, but the crape spelling indicates purely mourning material) veil and no jewelry (though jet was permitted). This particular period lasted for "One year and one day," and there would be other garment rules in later stages of mourning, which lasted up to two years.  

This was a very visual clue to a person's current emotional state, wasn't it? A visual symbol of grief, of why a person may not feel up to social events. A clue that a person may be feeling particularly sensitive, and should be approached with more consideration. 

Men were not expected to keep up beyond a black armband or a crape band around their hat. Children had less restrictive rules. 

Over the next few weeks, I'll scan more of my mourning images and place them in a Flickr album.

Taken on: April 29, 2025

Tags:

mourning

Sets appears in: • Mourning • 1890s

Groups appears in: • Found Photographs • 100 years old more » • The Museum of Found Photographs • Cabinet Cards • Vintage Victorian • Cabinet Portraits, CDV, photos on cardboard • Antique Photos • Vintage Photos • Vintage Portraiture • Vintage Scans • The Nineteenth Century • Victorian Photographic Portraits of People • Mourning Photos, Objects, Ephemera, and Art 1500-1920 « less

Stats: 387 views

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder