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By Root 585 0

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.