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Abstract

Excavated in downtown Plymouth, Massachusetts, a cache of 19th-century personal-adornment artifacts, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and organic materials provides an alternative view of mourning and memorialization practices in Victorian-era New England. The associated artifacts possess characteristics indicative of Victorian mourning symbols and material types. However, no other current examples of this mourning practice exist in the historical and archaeological records. Thus, this article will attempt to understand this discovery as an aspect of the private side of the traditionally public mourning practices and women’s efforts to create mourning customs that served in creating a feminine historical memory in the Victorian era.

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