In today's world, a death is remembered through our waves of modern communication such as the web and its devices, newspaper, signs, radio and word of mouth.  However, in the late 1800's up until the 1920's, funeral cards were used as a remembrance of the deceased.  These cards were also termed memorial cabinet cards and were the size of what was known as cabinet photographs.  (This was the style of photograph chosen for portraits in 1870 and was comprised of a thin photograph mounted on cards which measured six and one-half inches by four and one-half inches.)  The cards, like the photographs, were printed on thick card stock and were to be displayed either in a frame or in the family album.

From my research, I found that companies who manufactured these cards had people assigned to find death notices and sent advertising to them in hopes that the family would order cards as a remembrance of their loved one.  Therefore, these memorial cards would have been ordered and received well after a funeral; however, the purpose of them was to become a keepsake memorial for the family of the dead and to be placed in the family photo album along with the family's cabinet photographs.


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