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about contemporary American burial practices almost nothing has been written.
The National Funeral Directors Association, aware of this omission and anxious to correct it, commissioned two writers, Robert W. Habenstein and William M. Lamers, to explore the subject and to come up with some answers.
In two misinformation-packed paragraphs, we are assured not only that American funerals are based on hallowed custom and tradition, but that they conform to long-held religious doctrine.
On the contrary, the salient features of the contemporary American funeral (beautification of the corpse, metal casket and vault, banks of store-bought flowers, the ubiquitous offices of the “funeral director”) are all of very recent vintage in this country, and each has been methodically designed and tailored to extract maximum profit for the trade.
What of embalming, the pivotal aspect of the American funeral?
True, the practice of preserving dead bodies with chemicals, decorating them with paint and powder, and arranging them for a public showing has its origin in antiquity—but not in Judaeo-Christian antiquity.
The Greeks, knowing the uses of both, were no more likely to occupy themselves with the preservation of dead flesh than they were to bury good wine for the comfort of dead bodies. They cremated their dead, for the most part, believing in the power of flame to set free the soul.
The Jews frowned upon embalming, as did the early Christians, who regarded it as a pagan custom.
The eclipse of embalming was never quite total, however.
The death of a monarch, since it is the occasion for a transfer of power, calls for demonstration, and it has throughout history been found politically expedient to provide visible evidence of death by exposing the body to public view.
Although embalming as a trade or cult was not resumed until this century, there prospered in every age charlatans and eccentrics who claimed to have rediscovered the lost art of the Egyptians or who offered new and improved pickling methods of their own invention. These were joined, in the eighteenth century, by French and English experimenters spurred by a quite different motive—the need for more efficient methods of preserving cadavers for anatomical studies.
“Dr.” Thomas Holmes.
“the father of American embalming.”
Until the eighteenth century, few people except the very rich were buried in coffins. The “casket,” and particularly the metal casket, is a phenomenon of modern America, unknown in past days and in other parts of the world.
All three visions have come to be realities—the steamboat, electricity, and the Hilco Peerless Cast Bronze Burial Receptacle.”
People come up with some really stupid analogies. Likening bronze casket design to the harnessing of steam power or Franklin's experiments with electricity being one of them.
Mourning symbols have run the gamut.
In medieval England and in colonial America, the skull and crossbones was the favored symbol,
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.
Funeral services were held in the church over the pall-covered bier, and a brief committal prayer was said at the graveside.
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.
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.
“Public opinion is based on the education of the public, which believes what it is told.”
He is not wrong in this
The first code of ethics, adopted in 1884, says, “There is, perhaps, no profession, after that of the sacred ministry, in which a high-toned morality is more imperatively necessary than that of a funeral director’s. High moral principles are his only safe guide.”
while the funeral men are always ready with dukes up to go on the offensive, the average minister is generally unaware that war has been declared.
The issue boils down to this: The morticians resent the intrusion into their business of clergy who take it upon themselves to steer parishioners in the direction of moderation in choice of casket and other matters pertaining to the production of the funeral.
That the poor pay more is a truism that has not been disregarded by the conglomerates.
twenty mortuaries in the area that will provide direct cremations for less than $700, cremation container and crematory fee included. The funeral homes owned by SCI and Loewen quote prices of $2,745 to $3,985 for the identical service.
The IFIC also uncovered what it regards as a pattern of mortuary manipulation of the clergy.
In 1975, after an intensive two-year study, the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Protection Bureau announced with much fanfare a proposed “trade rule” on funeral industry practices.
At the heart of the original proposal were these requirements:
The Consumer’s Right to Choose.
Prices must be quoted over the telephone.
Undertakers would be prohibited from misstating the law specifically with reference to embalming.
The cheapest casket must be displayed with the others.
Funeral providers would be prohibited from telling the customer that the “eternal sealer” casket will preserve the embalmed corpse for a long or indefinite time.
“By 1976 the FTC’s activism and aggressive actions against many powerful interests had galvanized escalating lobbying efforts.
By 1978 two components of the rule had already been dropped: the requirement to display the cheapest caskets with the others, and the prohibition against trying to influence the buyer in his choice of funeral.
In June 1994 the commission adopted an amendment to the rule to permit sellers to add their overhead to a nondeclinable fee, to cover a laundry list of items
The FTC thereby, in a single stroke, obliterated the import of itemization and the consumer’s right to choose
the principal beneficiaries of the Federal Trade Commission’s ignoble retreat, are the multinational corporations that have put their imprint on every facet of the business.
SCI entered this picture with the force of a hurricane, swept away the antiquated methods of the old-timers, and substituted “clustering,” the latest in streamlined mass production. Borrowing from the successful techniques of McDonald’s, where food preparation and management functions are centralized, SCI first buys up a carefully chosen selection of funeral homes, cemeteries, flower shops, and crematoria in a given metropolitan area.
The next step is to move the essential elements of the trade to a central depot. “Clustered” in this hive of activity are the hearses, limousines, utility cars, drivers, dispatchers, embalmers, and a spectrum of office workers from accountants to data processors, who are kept constantly busy servicing, at vast savings, the needs of a half dozen or more erstwhile independent funeral homes.
The funeral customer is totally unaware of the strategy of clustering because of the immensely successful SCI policy of anonymity. In general, the plan is to acquire Johnson’s Chapel of Eternal Rest and keep not only the name but also Johnson himself, now installed as salaried manager, thus ensuring continuity of recognition and goodwill.
“Also covers overhead, such as facility maintenance, equipment and inventory costs, insurance and administrative expenses, and general governmental compliance.” Curiouser and curiouser. Here the buyer is assessed for everything from upkeep of the parking lot to dusting the office furniture, and, on top of that, under “government compliance” must pay for the funeral parlor to refrain from breaking the law.
The Brits seemed to like being fifty years behind their Yank counterparts.
in England only the closest relations
The whole mentality of burying here is that the dead should be disposed of with quiet respectability and the minimum of fuss and publicity. Decent and quiet, you might say.”
The main trouble seems to be that “the open-casket is unknown in this country.… The coffin is invariably closed at the funeral service proper and, more important still, the funeral director is frequently instructed at the first call to close the coffin immediately
English doctors, we learn, are most uncooperative: “The medical profession in Great Britain exercise a power second to none.
