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Step into an era when death was not avoided but embraced: displayed in parlors, woven into jewelry, photographed with reverence, and spoken to across candlelit tables. The Victorians didn’t turn away from the macabre. They invited it indoors. In their world, grief was theatrical, rituals were elaborate, and curiosity about the afterlife shaped daily life as deeply as fashion and industry.
Grave Obsessions explores this beautifully strange intersection of superstition, mourning, and innovation. With folklorist and historian Rissa Miller as your guide, travel through a culture where spiritualism thrived and ghost stories were not merely entertainment, they were believed pathways to understanding the unseen.
We’ll examine how Victorians imagined the dead returning, why vampires emerged as anxious reflections of society’s fears, and how the Ouija board became a nationwide sensation at living room séances.
Along the way, we’ll wander through the quieter, more intimate forms of mourning: the braided hair preserved in rings and brooches, the death portraits meant to hold memory still, and the tender rise of pet cemeteries that revealed how deeply Victorians grieved all their loved ones, human or otherwise. These customs, both haunting and heartfelt, reveal a society desperate to bridge the gap between the living and the dead.
In this immersive, darkly enchanting program, we’ll uncover how Victorians used folklore, faith, fear, and fashion to transform death into an art form, and how those practices still echo through our modern beliefs about ghosts, spirits, and the rituals that comfort us in grief. It’s a journey through a world equal parts eerie, elegant, and unforgettable.
An original program by Dr. Zoe Copeman and Rissa Miller; presented by Rissa Miller.
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Event Venue
Ghostly Images of Gettysburg Tours, 778 Baltimore St,Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, United States
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
