Facing Death: Photoceramic Gravestone Portraits and Immigrant Religious Identity, 1880–1960

If you visit an American cemetery hoping to learn something intimate about its residents, you may leave disappointed.In many newer cemeteries, you will be met with row upon row of similar granite stones with cryptic, repetitive inscriptions: "Beloved Mother Jane Doe / Died Feb 1899."If you are lucky, you may come across a stone with a small epitaph or laser-etched icon.The expression of death that is embodied in the tranquil memorial park is a result of a development of American opinion drawing from traditions that viewed death as the final divide, a stoic and silent process by which individuals are separated from those they love.This opinion derived from both age-old Puritan and Protestant influences and a new political investment in public health and cleanliness that emerged during the nineteenth century.The dead were placed in graves away from the home, to be visited on controlled terms, in order not to pollute the living.For those who believed in the propriety of this separation, coming across a photographic portrait of the deceased in a cemetery would be surprising, if not shocking and repellent.Even so, such portraits existed, issuing a direct challenge to mainstream American attitudes toward death by allowing strangers to come face-to-face with the deceased.For some communities, most notably for the purposes of this article Jews and Italian Catholics, the photoceramic gravestone portrait was a significant piece of the mourning and burial ritual (Figure 1).1 It functioned as part of a religious and cultural tradition that centered the dead rather than distancing them, prizing remembrance and personal connection even through death.In contrast to expensive carved portraits, the photoceramic portrait presented a more affordable 37