Entree van de begraafplaats te Schoonhoven 1882

Lodewijk Hendrikus Serré made this photograph of the entrance to the cemetery in Schoonhoven, probably in the 1880s, using the albumen print process. The image captures the architecture of the cemetery entrance and the cannons stored to the side, but perhaps more strikingly, the group of boys posing casually in the foreground. Looking at this image, we can ask what the presence of these children tells us about Dutch society at the time. The rather grand architecture suggests a civic pride in the cemetery as a public space. But the cannons remind us that the Netherlands had only been fully independent for a few decades, and was investing in military infrastructure. Historians can use census records, local archives, and newspaper reports to reconstruct a richer picture of Schoonhoven, its institutions, and its inhabitants in this period. The image invites us to consider how the rituals of death and remembrance are always closely tied to questions of national and local identity.