Funeral and Mourning Ephemera

The William Frost Mobley Collection of Funeral and Mourning Ephemera (1809-1963) consists of American ephemera related to funerals and mourning customs. It features a wide variety of mostly late nineteenth century printed materials that document American funerary and mourning practices of the time. The collection includes manuscript bills for grave-digging, burial and gravestones; printed eulogies and elegies; printed invitations to funerals; printed and pictorial billheads for funeral-related businesses; printed memorial cards; tributes to members of a fraternity killed during the Civil War; death announcements and funeral notices; trade cards for various funerary businesses; letterheads of companies selling caskets, monuments, and other funeral services; cemetery deeds; samples and price lists for mourning cards; two photographs of horse-drawn hearses; two lithographed mourning pictures; a mourning badge honoring President William McKinley; and similar items. A few of the items are for mock funerals.