#205 – Burial Practice Makes Perfect

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Tana’s Thesis: Paying Respects: Death, Commodity Culture, and the Middle Class in Victorian London.

Death Photos of the Victorian Age – memento mori 

The Catholic incorruptible saints

British “natural death” burial laws

Garden Cemeteries

The Cremation Society (behind the 1902 UK Cremation Act)

The Highgate Vampire case of the early 1970s

Nicholas Cage’s pyramid tomb in New Orleans St. Louis Cemetery 

(Source: Atlas Obscura)

New Orleans Above Ground Burial:

“When St. Peter Street graveyard was close to capacity, city officials established St. Louis Cemetery #1. At the time, Esteban Miro was the governor of New Orleans, and his allegiance was to Spain. Therefore, when the St. Louis Cemetery was developed, the wall vault system that was popular in Spain at the time was adopted for those who wished to be buried stylishly above ground. Ground burial also continued at St. Louis Cemetery.”

Mort Safes – protected corpses from resurrectionists, not the public from wandering dead.

Burke & Hare – notorious resurrectionists turned murderers, inspired:

• The Body Snatcher (1945)
• Burke and Hare (2011)
• Horror Maniacs aka The Greed of William Hart (1948)
• The Flesh and the Fiends aka The Fiendish Ghouls (1960)
• Burke and Hare (1972)
• The Doctor and the Devils (1985)  (amazing cast + produced by Mel Brooks!?)

“Saved by the Bell” etymology derives from boxing, not grave bells

Launching ashes into space

“Jet” the source of the phrase “jet black” and the Whitby Jet mourning jewelry referenced

Key West cemetery