I was reading about Henry Huttleston Rogers and came across this photo. In all the historical photos I have seen of the US, I have never seen one like this, where it appears the women have some sort of complete covering over their heads. I do know that the Rogers family was incredibly wealthy, so I figure they would be at the upper end of trends at the time.
Any idea?
It's a heavy funeral veil.
Mourning attire got pretty elaborate in the Victorian era (famously Queen Victoria herself wore mourning for forty years after the death of her husband) as fashion concerns tended to push more and more into it (especially since mourning dress could be expected to be worn for a year or more). Veils featured through a lot of the twentieth century, at JFK's funeral you can see Jackie Kennedy wearing a trimmed down version of what those women are wearing.
The Met featured an exhibition on 19th century mourning attire a few years back
