The cemetery movement (ca. 1825-1852) was a unique moment in burial history, when funereal capitalism took hold of major urban centers, resulting in the construction of vast graveyards detached from the parish structure, whose professional management and aesthetic innovations clearly inspired aspects of the cemeteries resulting from the later 1850s burial reform. However, its discourse about public good and practice of lucrative private investment were often balanced on a razor's edge, and likely contributed to undermining the moral economy of the Dead, one of the key leftovers of the Early Modern period within the churchyard system, as this presentation endeavours to show.