In the 19thcentury, death played a far greater role in everyday life.
Children and adults were frequently and openly exposed to death and losing loved ones. As history shows there are a few ways to remember those lost to death; some examples would be: hair jewelry, post-mortem photography, death masks. Hair bracelets and wax heads aside, Victorian mourning dolls are one of the more overlooked element of the Victorian grief process. (for the rest of this report, although heads could be made of wax or harder substance, 'wax' will be used as the general term)
By the tail end of the 19thcentury, it was customary for the family of a deceased child to leave a doll at the gravesite, or in a glass encasement, should the child be placed in a crypt.
Of course, leaving toys at the grave of a child remains a familiar sight; at the very least at spots where a child passed away from a hit-and-run. But "Mourning Dolls" are specific dolls; not shop-bought, but made to resemble the child, and in most cases with their hair in place of the doll's hair.
The life of the Mourning Doll/Grave Doll began at the funeral, or the wake, of the infant. A likeness was made and presented in the child’s own clothes, frequently even pictured lying with the deceased on the child's deathbed. In some cases they were also displayed in miniature coffins as an idealized image of peaceful death. Considering that many infant mortalities were caused by disfiguring and draining illnesses such as smallpox, scarlet fever, tuberculosis and diphtheria, the doll offered an idealized reality of their loss. While their child may have departed gaunt and bloody, the artificial creation/likeness would look as though it had simply closed its eyes and gone to sleep.
Subsequently, the coffin versions were often sculpted with flat backs and heads to ease placement in frames, coffins and at the graveside.
However, those that survive today had very different treatments. They aren't left out in the open, or in the crypt. Most are often kept at home, displayed in the bed of the deceased and even cared for and re-dressed as though they were the deceased.
In today's society, a branch of of this idea is used for emotional therapy, for those that have lost a child (mainly a baby) and are having a hard time to let go. The dolls are lifelike and instead of solid material, filled with something akin to rice or other like material, to give the doll the same type of weight that would be a live baby.
And folks mainly turn more towards leaving other types of dolls at grave sites or memorial sites; i.e. teddy bears.
Now, for something a bit more... edgier?
Some say that dolls such as this, can hold spirits within them. The spirit of the child? Perhaps.
