Ep. 109 - The Fascinating Funeral Industry of the 19th Century

In this episode, Genevieve will discuss the funeral industry of the 19th century and a few of her favorite death-centered professions that are no longer in high demand today, but were positively fascinating: funeral cookie bakers, corpse-watchers, mutes and professional mourners.  Thank you to today’s sponsor, Alloy! Try the original estrogen-powered M4 skincare from Alloy. Visit myalloy.com and use code VICTORIAN for $20 off your first order! Subscribe to the Newsletter! Subscribe to the Patreon free trial for ad-free listening! Help Yourself to MVN Merch! Today’s Instagram Post My Problematic Award-Winning Video  Welcome to Heaven References: https://funeral.com/blogs/the-journal/funeral-biscuits-in-the-1800s-what-they-were-why-they-were-served-and-how-to-make-them-today?srsltid=AfmBOorry4RZkCYT3pQ2iGryb0LGfYJ-xZYnlhN6e4pYP5dl7Jb_SHwo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin-eater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleventh_edition_of_the_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica https://web.prm.ox.ac.uk/england/englishness-funeral-food.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral_biscuit https://www.victorianlondon.org/death/characteroffunerals.htm https://austins.co.uk/blog/the-history-of-the-victorian-mute/ https://thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com/tag/professional-mourners https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/alma%3A99127049613408651 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/15792/pg15792-images.html https://thevictorianbookofthedead.wordpress.com/category/buried-alive/ “Prematurely Buried” - Kilmore Free Press, Jan. 18th 1883. “Narrowly Escaped Burial Alive” - The Clinton Independent, Thursday Feb. 18th, 1892.