Wednesday, 4 December 2024 at 6:30pm - 7:30pm

The ABC's of Victorian Mourning. This talk with Chris Woodyard, author of The Victorian Book of the Dead and A is for Arsenic: An ABC of Victorian Death explores Victorian mourning conventions through a long-lost vocabulary of death. Woodyard will explain such things as the difference between full and half mourning, the functions of funeral feathermen, and essential products for mourning such as coffin furniture, hairwork, and immortelles. This talk will unveil some of the secrets of the Victorian undertaker and help you tell your bombazine from your crepe.

About your speaker

Chris Woodyard, is an writer and historian from Ohio, USA. She took her BA degree in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from The Ohio State University. In addition to nine books on Ohio ghost-lore, she is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead and A is for Arsenic: The ABCs of Victorian Death.  

She has given presentations at the Costume Society of America on such topics as “Making Shrouds: Mode, Memory, and Memento Mori,” and “Grief and Grievance: Mourning Crape as a Symbol of Protest.” She has also presented on topics such as “Dreaming of Crape: Funerary Omens of Death,” and “Putting the Nursery Into Mourning: Children in Crape” for various organizations of dress or death historians.

Media: Facebook TheVictorianBookoftheDead and Twitter @hauntedohiobook.com on Twitter.