"In the long, sleepless watches of the night": Exploring the Culture of Death, Bereavement, and Mourning in the Antebellum Period

Free event presented by Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site, in partnership with Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Join literary scholar Paul Lewis and public historian Tegan Kehoe for a conversation exploring loss and bereavement in the antebellum period through the lens of poetry and culture.

Kehoe, the author of Exploring American Healthcare Through 50 Historic Treasures, will discuss the medical and social context for illness, grief and loss in the antebellum period. She will describe evolving 19th-century understandings of the causes of illness and explore how antebellum framings of illness and death influenced people’s relationships with loss and grief.

Lewis, a professor emeritus of English at Boston College with a career-long interest in dark humor and gothic fiction, will consider expressions of grief in contrasting works by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Edgar Allan Poe. To what extent is Poe trying to console or horrify readers? To what extent do his intense, gothic renderings of loss conform to, deviate from, and/or satirize antebellum norms?

A selection of 19th-century mourning objects from the Longfellow House collection will be on display prior to the event from 5:00-6:00 PM.