The American Way of Death Revisited

by Jessica Mitford

  The inexorable upward thrust towards perfection in metal caskets was not, however, destined to be halted by judicial logic. Just one hundred years after the decision in Gilbert v. Buzzard, a triumph of the first magnitude was recorded by the D. H. Hill Casket Company of Chicago, and described in their 1920 Catalogue of Funeral Merchandise: “A Study in Bronze: When Robert Fulton said he could propel a boat by steam his friends were sure he was mentally deranged—that it could not be done. When Benjamin Franklin said he could draw electricity from the clouds his acquaintances thought he was crazy—that it could not be done. When our designing and manufacturing departments said they could and would produce a CAST BRONZE CASKET that would be the peer of anything yet developed, their friends and associates shook their heads sympathetically, feeling that it would be a hopeless task. All three visions have come to be realities—the steamboat, electricity, and the Hilco Peerless Cast Bronze Burial Receptacle.”

  The production of ever more solid and durable metal caskets has soared in this century; their long-lasting and even “eternal” qualities have become a matter of pride and self-congratulation throughout the industry—and this in one area of manufacture where built-in obsolescence might seem (as Lord Stowell pointed out) to present certain advantages. As we have seen, the sales of metal caskets now exceed sales of the old-fashioned wooden types. A brand-new tradition has been established; how deep are the roots, Messrs. Habenstein and Lamers?

  Mourning symbols have run the gamut. In medieval England and in colonial America, the skull and crossbones was the favored symbol, making its appearance on everything connected with death, from tombstone to funeral pall to coffin maker’s sign. Funerary extravagance took the form of elaborate mourning clothes, the hiring of mutes (or paid mourners), tremendous feasting sometimes of many days’ duration, and gifts to the living, who were showered with rings, scarves, needlework, books, and, most customarily, gloves.

  Funeral flowers, today the major mourning symbol and a huge item of national expenditure, did not make their appearance in England or America until after the middle of the nineteenth century, and only then over the opposition of church leaders.

  From colonial days until the nineteenth century, the American funeral was almost exclusively a family affair, in the sense that the family and close friends performed most of the duties in connection with the dead body itself. It was they who washed and laid out the body, draped it in a winding sheet, and ordered the coffin from the local carpenter. It was they who carried the coffin on foot from the home to the church and thence to the graveyard, and who frequently—unless the church sexton was available—dug the grave. Funeral services were held in the church over the pall-covered bier, and a brief committal prayer was said at the graveside. Between the death and the funeral, the body lay in the family parlor, where the mourners took turns watching over it, the practical reason for this being the ever-present possibility that signs of life might be observed. The first undertakers were drawn mainly from three occupations, all concerned with some aspect of burial: the livery-stable keeper, who provided the hearse and funeral carriages; the carpenter or cabinetmaker, who made the coffins; and the sexton, who was generally in charge of bell-tolling and gravedigging. In some of the larger cities, midwives and nurses advertised their services as occupational layers out of the dead, and were so listed in city directories. The undertaker’s job was primarily custodial. It included supplying the coffin from a catalogue or from his own establishment, arranging to bring folding chairs (if the service was to be held in the home, which was often the case), taking charge of the pallbearers, supervising the removal of the coffin and loading it into the hearse, and in general doing the necessary chores until the body was finally lowered into the grave.

  Shortly before the turn of the century, the undertaker conferred upon himself the title of “funeral director.” From that time on, possibly inspired by his own semantics, he began to direct funerals, and quietly to impose a character of his own on the mode of disposal of the dead.

  Some of the changes that were in store are foreshadowed in The Modern Funeral by W. P. Hohenschuh, published in 1900. Hohenschuh may have been the first to put into words a major assumption that lies behind modern funeral practices: “There is nothing too good for the dead,” he declares. He goes on to advise, “The friends want the best that they can afford.… A number of manufacturers have set an excellent example by fitting up magnificent showrooms, to which funeral directors can take their customers, and show them the finest goods made. It is an education for all parties concerned.… It is to be commended.” Hohenschuh’s injunctions about funeral salesmanship, although vastly elaborated over the years, remain basic: “Boxes must be shown to sell them. By having an ordinary pine box next to one that is papered, the difference is more readily seen than could be explained, and a better price can be obtained for the latter.” And on collections he warns, “Grief soon subsides, and the older the bill gets, the harder it is to collect.”

  In 1900 embalming was still the exception rather than the rule and was still generally done in the home—although Hohenschuh mentions a new trend making its appearance in California: that of taking the body to the funeral parlor after death for dressing and embalming. He proposes an ingenious approach to selling the public on embalming: “It may be suggested that bodies should be embalmed in winter as well as in summer. It may be a little difficult to have people accept this idea, but after having tried it a few times, and people realize the comfort to themselves in having the body in a warm room, this preventing them against colds, besides the sentimental feeling against having the body in a cold room, it is an easy matter to make the custom general.” However, the most profitable aspect of the modern funeral—that of preparing the body for the public gaze—seems to have escaped this astute practitioner, for he opposes the open casket at the funeral service, and remarks, “There is no doubt that people view the dead out of curiosity.”

  It was still a far cry from these early, hesitant steps of the emerging funeral industry to the full-fledged burlesque it has become.

  * While on a visit to London, I applied to the Royal College of Surgeons of England for permission to see Mrs. Van Butchell. I received this reply from the office of the curator: “While it is true that the late Mrs. Martin Van Butchell once occupied a place of honour in the historical collection of this College, it is regretted that she was finally cremated with so much valuable material in the destruction of the College in May, 1941, at the height of the London blitz.”

  13

  The Newest Profession

  Funeral directors are members of an exalted, almost sacred calling…. [T]he Executive Committee believed that a cut in prices would be suicidal, and notified the manufacturers that better goods, rather than lower prices, were needed…. A $1,000 prize was offered for the best appearing corpse after 60 days.… A resolution was passed requesting the newspapers in reporting the proceedings to refrain from flippancy.

  —Sunny side, 1885*

  These observations are culled from an 1885 report describing the proceedings of one of the earliest National Funeral Directors Association conventions. A century later, the problems they reflect continue to occupy the attention of the undertaking trade: how to be exalted, almost sacred, and at the same time be successful businessmen in a highly competitive situation; how to continually upgrade their peculiar product; how to establish successful relations with press and public.

  The special public relations problem that dogs the undertaker has existed for all time, arising out of the very nature of his occupation. It is uphill work to present it attractively, but he tries, perhaps too hard. Of late years he has compounded his built-in dilemma by veering off in his own weird direction towards a cult of the dead unsanctioned by tradition, religion, or common sense. He has painted himself into a difficult corner. His major justifications for his practices fly in the face of reality, but he persists; the fantasy he has created, and in which he by now has so much cash invested, must
somehow be made desirable to the buying public. And like every other successful salesman, the funeral salesman must first and foremost believe in himself and his product.

  He is in any case not just a funeral salesman. There is the creative aspect of his work, the aesthetically rewarding task of transforming the corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture. Pride of craftsmanship, fascination with technique, and continuous striving for improvement shine through all that he writes on this subject.

  The sort of passionate devotion it is possible to develop for embalming, the true Art for Art’s Sake approach, is captured in a testimonial letter published as part of an advertisement for Cosmetic Tru-Lanol Arterial Fluid. Like any other craftsman, the embalmer gets satisfaction from rising to a challenge and often hates to part with his finished product. The letter describes an unusually difficult case: “The subject … was a 69-year-old lady, 5′2″ tall with 48″ bust and 48″ hips. Death was a sudden heart attack. She lay 40 hours in a heated apartment prior to being moved.” The writer goes on to mention other inauspicious circumstances surrounding the case, such as a series of punctures made in the center of circulation by some bungler in the medical examiner’s office. However, Tru-Lanol comes to the rescue: “Surface penetration was slow and even, with excellent cosmetic results.… By the fourth day, the swelling in the features was receding in a very uniform manner, and the cosmetic was still excellent. Honestly, I don’t know of another fluid that would have done as good a job in this case, all things considered.” He adds wistfully, “I wish I could have kept her for four more days.” How poignant those last words! And in a way, how very understandable.

  Every craft develops its outstanding practitioners, those who seem to live for the sake of their work. Such a one was Elizabeth “Ma” Green, born in 1884, a true zealot of funeral service. Mortuary Management, in a tribute to this unusual woman, recalls that “Ma” got her start in a lifelong career of embalming as a teenager: “It was during this early period of her life that she became interested in caring for the dead. As this interest increased, she assisted the village undertaker in the care and preparation of family friends who passed away.” “Ma” never looked back. By the early twenties she had become a licensed embalmer, and later took a job as principal of an embalming college. She stayed in this work, girl and woman, some sixty years: “It was obvious she had an almost passionate devotion to the Profession.”

  Funeral people are always saying that “funerals are for the living,” yet there is occasional evidence that they have developed an eerie affection, a genuine solicitude, for the dead, in whose company they spend so much time. It is as though they really attribute feelings to these mute remains of humanity, much as a small child attributes feelings to his teddy bear; as though they are actually concerned with the comfort and well-being of the bodies entrusted to their care. A 1921 issue of The Casket describes a chemical which, “when sprayed into the mouth of a cadaver, prevents and stops the development of pyorrhea.” And California is one of several states where it is a penal offense to use “profane, indecent or obscene language” in the presence of a dead human body.

  When the funeral practitioner puts pen to paper on his favorite subject, the results are truly dreamy flights of rhapsody. Mr. John H. Eckels says in his textbook Mortuary Science that “the American method of arterial embalming … adds another laurel to the crown of inventiveness, ingenuity, and scientific research which the world universally accords to us.… In fact, there is no profession on record which has made such rapid advancement in this country as embalming.… In summing up this whole situation, the funeral profession today is one of the most vital callings in the cause of humanity. Funeral directors are the advance guards of civilization.…” These vivid metaphors, these laurels, crowns and advance guards, express with peculiar appropriateness the modern undertaker’s fond conception of his work and himself. How to generate equal enthusiasm in the minds of the public for the “funeral profession” is a more difficult problem.

  Mr. Edward A. Martin, author of Psychology of Funeral Service, sees undertakers in a role “similar to that of a school teacher who knows and believes in his subject but who must find attractive ways to impress it indelibly upon his pupils. Our class consists of more than 150 million Americans, and the task of educating them is one that cannot be accomplished overnight.” He adds, “Public opinion is based on the education of the public, which believes what it is told.”

  There is some evidence that while this great pedagogical process has taken hold most strongly among the funeral men themselves, it has left the public either apathetic or downright hostile. In other words, the funeral men live very largely in a dreamworld of their own making about the “acceptance” of their product in the public mind. They seem to feel that saying something often and loudly enough will somehow make it true. “Sentiment alone is the foundation of our profession,” they cry. “The new funeral director is a Doctor of Grief, or expert in returning abnormal minds to normal in the shortest possible time!”

  But the public goes merrily on its way, thinking (when it thinks of the matter at all) that moneymaking is the foundation of the funeral trade, that the matter of returning abnormal minds to normal is best left in the hands of trained psychiatrists, that it has neither been asked for nor voiced its approval of modern funeral practices. There are really two parts to the particular selling job confronting the funeral industry. The first is that of convincing people of the correctness and essential Americanism of the kind of funeral the industry wants to sell; convincing them, too, that in funerary matters there is an obligation to adhere closely to standards and procedures established by the funeral directors—who, after all, should know best about these things. The second is that of projecting an ever more exalted image of the purveyors of funerals.

  Funeral men constantly seek to justify the style and cost of their product on the basis of “tradition,” and on the basis of their theory that current funeral practices are a reflection of characteristically high American standards. The “tradition” theory is a hard one to put across, as we have seen; the facts tend to run in the opposite direction. Therefore, certain incantations—Wise Sayings with the power of great inspiration—are frequently invoked to help along the process of indoctrination. There is one in particular which crops up regularly in mortuary circles: a quotation from Gladstone, who is reported to have said, “Show me the manner in which a nation or a community cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender sympathies of its people, their respect for the law of the land and their loyalty to high ideals.”* One could wish he were with us in the twentieth century to apply his handy measuring tape to a calendar issued by the W. W. Chambers Mortuary. Over the legend “Beautiful Bodies by Chambers” appears an unusually well endowed, and completely naked, young lady. Another favorite soothsayer is Benjamin Franklin, who is roped in from time to time and quoted as having said, “To know the character of a community, I need only to visit its cemeteries.” Wise old Ben! Could he but visit Forest Lawn today, he would have no need to go on to Los Angeles.

  In their constant striving for better public relations, funeral men are hampered by their inability to agree on what they are, what weight should be given the various roles in which they see themselves, what aspect should be stressed both within the trade and to the public. Is the funeral director primarily merchant, embalmer, lay psychiatrist, or a combination of all these? The pronouncements of his leaders, association heads, writers of trade books and manuals, and other theoreticians of the industry betray the confusion that exists on this point.

  “Embalming is the cornerstone upon which the funeral service profession was founded and it has remained so through the years. It is the only facet of service offered by our industry that is not wholly based upon sentiment, with all its attendant weaknesses,” editorializes the American Funeral Director. The authoritative Messrs. Habenstein and Lamers see it differently. They are of the opinion that funeral service rests primarily on
“the psychological skills in human relations necessary to the proper handling of the emotions and dispositions of the bereaved.” Still another journal sees it this way: “Merchandising is the lifeblood of the funeral service business.…” And in a laudable effort to reconcile some of these conflicting ideas, there is an article in the American Funeral Director headed PRACTICAL IDEALISM IN FUNERAL DIRECTING, which declares, “The highest of ideals are worthless unless they are properly applied. The funeral director who thinks only in terms of serving would very likely find himself out of business in a year or less.… And if he were compelled to close up his establishment what possible use would be all his high ideals and his desire to serve?” And so the Practical Idealist comes back full circle to his role as merchant, to “costs, selling methods, the business end of his costs.”

  Funeral people are always telling one another about the importance of ethics (not just any old ethics but usually “the highest ethics”), sentiment, integrity, standards (again, “the highest”), moral responsibility, frankness, cooperation, character. They exhort one another to be sincere, friendly, dignified, prompt, courteous, calm, pleasant, kindly, sympathetic, good listeners; to speak good English; not to be crude; to join the Masons, the Knights of Columbus, the Chamber of Commerce, the Boy Scouts, the PTA; to take part in the Community Chest drive; to be pleasant and fair-dealing with employees and clients alike; not to cuss their competitors; and, it goes without saying, so to conduct themselves that they will be above scandal or slander. In short, they long to be worthy of high regard, to be liked and understood, a most human longing.