The Morthouse

This must be the cover of some punk or hardcore 7”, somewhere.

Cover of LIFE magazine, October 31, 1960. Photo by George Silk. Source: LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google.

Wish I knew the backstory here.

Shanghai Corpse Backlog, December 1946. Photograph by John Florea for LIFE. Source: LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google.

I focus on human, not animal, death on this site, but this was too human not to post.

Cat burial scene, 1925. Weir, Québec. Source: Library and Archives Canada.

This is George Mallory. Alive, in 1912.

Usually when I do my “This is So and So” posts, I show you a picture of them dead. That’s not the case here (though Dead George is a sight to behold): I like Alive George much, much better.

Mallory disappeared in 1924, on his third expedition to Mount Everest, along with his climbing partner, Andrew “Sandy” Irvine. It wasn’t until 75 years later, however, that Mallory’s body was discovered. On May 1, 1999, mountaineer Conrad Anker found Mallory’s frozen (and pretty much perfectly preserved) body on Everest. Here’s a video about it. It’s re-enact-y and overly dramatic, but it gives you an idea of how he was found.

From Wikipedia:

Within hours of beginning the search on 1 May, a frozen body was found by Conrad Anker at 26,760 feet (8,160 m) on the north face of the mountain. As the body was below where Irvine’s axe was found in 1933, the team expected the body to be Irvine’s, and were hoping to recover the camera that he had reportedly carried with him. They were surprised to find that name tags on the body’s clothing bore the name of “G. Mallory.” The body was remarkably well preserved, due to the mountain’s climate. The team could not locate the camera. Experts from Kodak have said that if a camera is ever found, there is some chance that its film could be developed to produce printable images, if extraordinary measures are taken.

Anker’s team held an Anglican service for Mallory and covered his body with a cairn. 

Image: George Mallory photographed at 38 Brunswick Square, London, age 25 or 26. Via Front Free Endpaper, whose post on Mallory is super, though NSFW (if you consider a very attractive man’s full back-al nudity NSFW).

This reminds me of that amazing child-funeral scene in Barry Lyndon, with plumed sheep pulling the hearse.

From Smithsonian Libraries: Illustrated Catalogue of Undertakers’ Hardware and Trimmings with separate price list. James M. Shanahan, New York City, 1869.

Via this board by Trini Wenninger on Pinterest.

New York circa 1911. “Grant’s Tomb. Rubber-neck auto on Riverside Drive.” Via Shorpy.

io9: The Awesomely Insane Heaven and Hell Nightclubs of 1890s Paris.

Yuck it up, guys.

A man laying in a coffin with a paper skeleton at the anti-superstition party. William C. Shrout, Chicago, 1940. Source: LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google.

Via The Atlantic:

New York Police Department Evidence photo. Homicide victim - overhead view, ca. 1916-1920. At the corners, note the legs of the tripod supporting the camera above the body. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)

Via The Atlantic:

New York Police Department evidence photo, homicide scene. Jos Kellner, 404 East 54th Street, murdered in hallway, on January 7, 1916. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives) 

Leipzig Suicides. Photograph by Margaret Bourke-White, 1945. Source: LIFE Photo Archive, hosted by Google.

Leipzig City Council deputy mayor Dr. Lisso, member of Nazi party since 1932, lying dead while seated at his Town Hall desk, a suicide from cyanide, along with his wife and daughter, as American soldiers enter the city at the end of WWII.

Illustration by H.L. Stephens for The Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin, ca. 1865, on 50 Watts:

Who’ll dig his grave?
I, said the Owl,
with my pick and shovel,
I’ll dig his grave.

Found via Daily Undertaker.

Hughes Mortuary Neon Sign by Ballyhooligan on Flickr.

A nice 1940s winter family photograph in front of the neon sign of Hughes Mortuary

Mourner at the Grave, Albumen Carte de Visite, Circa 1863 by lisby1 on Flickr.

“Copied by the London Photographic Compy., 1B Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater W., and 304 Regent Street W.”

This is a mass-produced sentimental image. The woman, dressed in widow’s mourning, laments at a real grave—however, it is too old a grave to be any of any freshly lost relative of her own. Thanks to modern technology the inscription can be read as “In affectionate remembrance of Frederick William Paige…who departed this life September 11, 1814, age 35.”