The American Way of Death Revisited

by Jessica Mitford

In 1977, fourteen years after The American Way of Death was published, I did further research on the funeral scene for an afterword entitled “Post Mortem” to a new paperback edition.

“Be sure to chitchat with your customer.” “But our customers don’t talk!” quipped a casket manufacturer to much hilarity.

A friend, knowing I was writing on the subject, reluctantly told me of her experience in arranging the funeral of a brother-in-law. She went to a long-established, “reputable” undertaker. Seeking to save the widow expense, she chose the cheapest redwood casket in the establishment and was quoted a low price. Later, the salesman called her back to say the brother-in-law was too tall to fit into this casket, she would have to take one that cost a hundred dollars more. When my friend objected, the salesman said, “Oh, all right, we’ll use the redwood one, but we’ll have to cut off his feet.” My friend was so shocked and disturbed by the nightmare quality of this conversation that she never mentioned it to anybody for two years.

Popular ignorance about the law as it relates to the disposal of the dead is a factor that sometimes affects the funeral transaction. People are often astonished to learn that in no state is embalming required by law except in certain special circumstances, such as when the body is to be shipped by common carrier.

The family would want something very simple, I went on, just cremation. Of course, we can arrange all that, I was assured. And since we want only cremation and there will be no service, we should prefer not to buy a coffin. The undertaker’s voice at the other end was now alert, although smooth. He told me, calmly and authoritatively, that it would be “illegal” for him to enter into such an arrangement. “You mean, it would be against the law?” I asked. Yes, indeed. “In that case, perhaps we could take a body straight to the crematorium in our station wagon?” A shocked silence, followed by an explosive outburst: “Madam, the average lady has neither the facilities nor the inclination to be hauling dead bodies around!” (Which was actually a good point, I thought.)

I gave my talk, which seemed to be well received because most people in Vidalia as elsewhere have at one time or another suffered from the machinations of the funeral industry. When the question period came, I asked first whether there were any questions from the funeral contingent. A black suit rose up and he said, “I am a vault man. I sell vaults. I listened to Mrs. Mitford’s speech and she never said that when Jesus Christ our Lord was crucified, a rich man gave him his vault.” And then he sat down. I replied that since I spend a lot of time in motels where the only reading matter supplied was a Bible, I was indeed familiar with the story of Joseph of Arimathea and his gift to Jesus of his vault. But if you read further, it seems he didn’t stay there all that long. I mean he was up and out in three days.

Yet no law requires embalming, no religious doctrine commends it, nor is it dictated by considerations of health, sanitation, or even of personal daintiness. In no part of the world but in North America is it widely used. The purpose of embalming is to make the corpse presentable for viewing in a suitably costly container; and here too the funeral director routinely, without first consulting the family, prepares the body for public display.

Is all this legal? The processes to which a dead body may be subjected are, after all, to some extent circumscribed by law. In most states, for instance, the signature of next of kin must be obtained before an autopsy may be performed, before the deceased may be cremated, before the body may be turned over to a medical school for research purposes; or such provision must be made in the decedent’s will. In the case of embalming, permission is required (under Federal Trade Commission rules) only if a charge is to be made for the procedure. Embalming is not, as funeral providers habitually claim, a legal requirement even when the body of the deceased is to be on display in an open casket. A textbook, The Principles and Practices of Embalming, comments on this: “There is some question regarding the legality of much that is done within the preparation room.” The author points out that it would be most unusual for a responsible member of a bereaved family to instruct the mortician, in so many words, to “embalm” the body of a deceased relative. The very term “embalming” is so seldom used that the mortician must rely upon custom in the matter.

Embalming is indeed a most extraordinary procedure, and one must wonder at the docility of Americans who each year pay hundreds of millions of dollars for its perpetuation, blissfully ignorant of what it is all about, what is done, and how it is done. Not one in ten thousand has any idea of what actually takes place. Books on the subject are extremely hard to come by. You will not find them in your neighborhood bookshop or library.

How true; once the blood is removed, chances of live burial are indeed remote.

Positioning the lips is a problem that recurrently challenges the ingenuity of the embalmer. Closed too tightly, they tend to give a stern, even disapproving expression.

Psychology of Funeral Service,

The family is not asked whether they want an open-casket ceremony; in the absence of instruction to the contrary, this is taken for granted. Consequently, well over 68 percent of all American funerals in the mid-1990s featured an open casket—a custom unknown in other parts of the world. Foreigners are astonished by it. An Englishwoman living in San Francisco described her reaction in a letter to the writer: I myself have attended only one funeral here—that of an elderly fellow worker of mine. After the service I could not understand why everyone was walking towards the coffin (sorry, I mean casket), but thought I had better follow the crowd. It shook me rigid to get there and find the casket open and poor old Oscar lying there in his brown tweed suit, wearing a suntan makeup and just the wrong shade of lipstick. If I had not been extremely fond of the old boy, I have a horrible feeling that I might have giggled. Then and there I decided that I could never face another American funeral—even dead.

So have the undertakers managed to delete the word “death” and all its associations from their vocabulary. They have from time to time published lists of In and Out words and phrases to be memorized and used in connection with the final return of dust to dust; then, still dissatisfied with the result, they have elaborated and revised the list. Thus, a 1916 glossary substitutes “prepare body” for “handle corpse.” Today, though, “body” is Out and “remains” or “Mr. Jones” is In. “The use of improper terminology by anyone affiliated with a mortuary should be strictly forbidden,” declares Edward A. Martin. He suggests a rather thorough overhauling of the language; his deathless words include: “service, not funeral; Mr., Mrs., Miss blank, not corpse or body; preparation room, not morgue; casket, not coffin; funeral director or mortician, not undertaker; reposing room, not showroom; baby or infant, not stillborn; deceased, not dead; autopsy or post-mortem, not ‘post’; coach, not hearse; shipping case, not shipping box; flower car, not flower truck; cremains or cremated remains, not ashes; clothing, dress, suit, etc., not shroud; drawing room, not parlor.”

Cadavers prepared for use in anatomical research may outlast the hardiest medical student. The trouble is, they don’t look very pretty; in fact they tend to resemble old shoe leather.

The two grounds chosen by the undertaking trade for defense of embalming embrace two objectives near and dear to the hearts of Americans: hygiene, and mental health. The theory that embalming is an essential hygienic measure has long been advanced by the funeral industry. A much newer concept, that embalming and restoring the deceased are necessary for the mental well-being of the survivors, is now being promoted by industry leaders; the observer who looks closely will discover a myth in the making here. “Grief therapy,” the official name bestowed by the undertakers on this aspect of their work, has long been a second line of defense for the embalmers.

When embalmers get together to talk among themselves, they are more realistic about the wonderful work of sanitation. In a panel discussion reported by the National Funeral Service Journal, Dr. I. M. Feinberg, an instructor at the Worsham College of Mortuary Science, said, “Sanitation is probably the farthest thing from the mind of the modern embalmer. We must realize that the motives for embalming at the present time are economic and sentimental, with a slight religious overtone.”

“There are several advantages to being dead,” he said cheerfully. “You don’t excrete, inhale, exhale, or perspire.”

In fact, you’re really better off with a shroud, and no casket at all.”

Pressed for specific cases of illness caused by failure to embalm, Mr. Krieger recalled the death from smallpox of a prominent citizen in a small Southern community where embalming was not practiced. Hundreds went to the funeral to pay their respects, and as a result a large number of them came down with smallpox. Unfortunately, Mr. Krieger had forgotten the name of the prominent citizen, the town, and the date of this occurrence. I asked him if he would check on these details and furnish me with the facts; however, he has not yet done so.

Then I asked, “Can you give any place, then, where the public health has been endangered—give us the place and the time?” They could not. We talked around the point for several minutes, but these two leaders of an industry built on the embalming process were unable to produce a single fact to support their major justification for the procedure. I told them what Dr. Carr had said about embalming and public health. “Do you have any comment on that?” I asked. Mr. Raether answered, “No; but we can take a look-see and try to give you some instances.”

Kenneth V. Iserson is a professor of surgery and director of the bioethics program at the Medical School of the University of Arizona. After twenty years in practice treating dying patients and counseling professionals and families about sudden death, he realized, when preparing an ethics paper on teaching with donated remains, that there were huge gaps in his knowledge about what happened to dead bodies. He was prompted to investigate, and the results of his exploration were published as Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies? (Galen Press, 1994).

The clincher for Dr. Iserson is the acknowledged failure of embalmers universally to apply measures for their own protection. If embalmers are not concerned about protecting themselves, he reasons, what message does that send to the public about the claim that embalming is necessary as a public health measure? The true purpose of embalming, he suggests, is to facilitate an open-casket funeral—with the emphasis on casket. Embalming, he suggests, is a procedure that boils down to sales and profits.

“If embalming is taken out of the funeral, then viewing the body will also be lost. If viewing is lost, then the body itself will not be central to the funeral. If the body is taken out of the funeral, then what does the funeral director have to sell?”

“Grief therapy” is most commonly used by funeral men to describe the mental and emotional solace which, they claim, is achieved for the bereaved family as a result of being able to “view” the embalmed and restored deceased.

Demonstrably flimsy and absurd as the justifications for universal embalming and “viewing” may have been, these patently fraudulent claims of undertakers for their product remained immune from government intervention until 1984, when the Federal Trade Commission’s funeral rules were adopted. These provided, among other things, that: It is a deceptive act or practice for a funeral provider to: • Represent that state or local law requires that a deceased person be embalmed when such is not the case; • Fail to disclose that embalming is not required by law except in certain special cases.

The theory is that the cemeteries, operating as nonprofit organizations, have no business selling things.

Prevailing sentiment that there was something special and sacred about cemetery land, that it deserved special consideration and should not be subjected to such temporal regulation as taxation, was reflected in court decisions and state laws. A cemetery company is an association formed for

“a pious and public use,” the United States Supreme Court said in 1882, and more recently the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a cemetery, even if privately owned, is a public burial ground “whose operation for purposes of profit is offensive to public policy.” Other rulings have affirmed that land acquired for cemetery purposes becomes entirely exempt from real estate taxes the moment it is acquired, even before a dead body is buried in it.

A very creative idea for cemeteries is to establish them as nonprofit corporations. In California and in many other states, virtually all commercial cemeteries enjoy this privilege. At first glance it would seem an act of purest altruism that somebody should go to all the trouble, at absolutely no profit to himself, to start a cemetery wherein his fellow man may be laid to eternal rest. A second glance discloses that the nonprofit aspect removes the necessity to pay income tax on grave sales. And a really close look discloses that the profits that are now routinely extracted by the promoters of “nonprofit” cemeteries are spectacular beyond the dreams of the most avaricious real estate subdivider.

One Los Angeles “lawn-type” cemetery gives this estimate of its land use: Adult graves 1,815 per acre Additional graves; made available by reserving one-half of each acre for double-depth interments 907 Babyland (three in the space occupied by one adult) 120 Total number of graves 2,842 per acre Another, also in Los Angeles, projects 3,177 “plantings” per acre on land used for ground burial.

A mausoleum building firm reported construction of a 336-crypt “indoor-outdoor” mausoleum in Reserve, Louisiana, which at that time had a population of 1,126.

In real life, the brand-new mausoleums mushrooming in communities across the country do not look very much like the Taj Mahal. They look a good deal more like giant egg crates, and the little receptacles have a certain sameness about them—which is not surprising, since they are identical.

Forest Lawn Memorial-Park of Southern California is the greatest nonprofit cemetery of them all; and without a doubt its creator—Hubert Eaton, the Dreamer, the Builder, inventor of the Memorial Impulse—is the anointed regent of cemetery operators.

The Dreamer and his brainchild are already known to tens of thousands of readers through The Loved One, by Evelyn Waugh—to whom Mortuary Management refers as “Evelyn (Bites-The-Hand-That-Feeds-Him) Waugh.”

“Does one have to be a citizen or sign a loyalty oath to get into the Hall of Patriots?” I asked a guide. “No, ma’am!” was the answer. “Anyone can be buried there, as long as he’s got the money to pay for it.” (This is not strictly true; Forest Lawn refused convicted rapist Caryl Chessman’s last remains “on moral grounds.”)

Nationwide, there has been a phenomenal growth in cremation since The American Way of Death was first published. In 1961, 3.75 percent of the American dead were cremated; by 1995, 21 percent and rising.

Preference for cremation varies greatly from region to region. In 1993 (the last date for which a state-by-state breakdown is available) Mississippi had the lowest cremation rate, 2.6 percent; and Nevada the highest, with 58 percent. In general, all the Southern states with the exception of Florida (40 percent) have very low cremation figures. Midwest are medium low; New England, fairly high, West Coast, high.

In England, for example—where there were three cremations in 1885—it is today the mode of disposal for 72 percent of the dead.

Naturally, that thorny old critic of the status quo George Bernard Shaw was strongly in favor of cremation, and he sums up the argument for it with his usual pithiness: “Dead bodies can be cremated. All of them ought to be, for earth burial, a horrible practice, will some day be prohibited by law, not only because it is hideously unaesthetic, but because the dead would crowd the living off the earth if it could be carried out to its end of preserving our bodies for their resurrection on an imaginary day of judgment (in sober fact, every day is a day of judgment).”

CANA would have us believe that “cremation is not an end in itself, but the process which prepares the human remains for inurnment in a beautiful and everlasting memorial.” CANA’s view is flatly contradicted by law, which in just about every state defines cremation as a form of “final disposition.” Most states likewise make an explicit distinction between bodily and cremated remains. Laws, for example, which prohibit personal ownership of dead bodies do allow family members to retain the ashes, and these are customarily handed over when no other arrangement has been made for their disposition.

Cremation and the Funeral Director: Successfully Meeting the Challenge, by Michael W. Kubasak.

If you can’t sell an urn, why not turn the ashes over to a flying service for sea scattering? Seems fair. But is it? Here again, the byword is follow the money. The dozens of mortuaries that collected $100 to $200 from the survivors for the service paid the poor wretch who was to do the scattering an average of $30 to $60. None of them took the trouble to ascertain whether their instructions were actually carried out. Using median numbers, it will be seen that the mortuaries realized, among them, a profit of $526,000 from this seemingly insignificant sideline. At the same time, preliminary investigation has revealed that the majority of the victims who paid to have their relatives’ ashes scattered were never informed that they had the right to take the ashes home with them. Had they known of this option they would not, of course, have paid to have them scattered.

Franklin D. Roosevelt left extremely detailed and explicit instructions for his funeral “in the event of my death in office as President of the United States.” The instructions were contained in a four-page penciled document dated December 26, 1937, early in his second term, and were addressed to his eldest son, James. The instructions included these directions: • That a service of the utmost simplicity be held in the East Room of the White House. • That there be no lying in state anywhere.

• That a gun-carriage and not a hearse be used throughout. • That the casket be of absolute simplicity, dark wood, that the body be not embalmed or hermetically sealed, and • That the grave be not lined with brick, cement, or stones. Regarding the latter instruction, James Roosevelt writes, “So far as we can learn, he never had discussed this with anyone. Knowing Father, we can only speculate that he regarded the embalming procedure as a distasteful invasion of privacy, and that perhaps he had an inner yearning to follow the traditional funeral liturgy, ‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection.’ ”

Failure to carry out certain of his other instructions can only be laid to the unlucky circumstance that they were found too late. It is, however, interesting to compare President Roosevelt’s words with accounts given by participants in the funeral: MR. ROOSEVELT: That the body be not embalmed. MR. FRED PATTERSON: All three assistants worked incessantly five hours to give the President the proper appearance, and to be certain of proper preservation.… We had a difficult case, did our best and believe that we pleased everyone in every respect.… Saturday morning Mr. William Gawler (a Washington undertaker) phoned me stating that the tissues were firm, complexion was fine and those who saw him remarked, “He looks like his old self again and much younger.”

MR. ROOSEVELT: That the body be not … hermetically sealed. MR. WILLIAM GAWLER: The casket was closed and the inner top bolted down at 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. The outer top was sealed with cement. MR. ROOSEVELT: That the grave be not lined with brick, cement, or stones. MR. JAMES ROOSEVELT: The casket was placed in a cement vault. MR. ROOSEVELT: That a gun-carriage and not a hearse be used throughout. MR. PATTERSON: As the caisson did not arrive at the last minute the casket was taken in our Sayers and Scoville Cadillac hearse.

In November 1963, three months after the first edition of this book was published, it became once more the unhappy task of presidential aides to supervise the obsequies of a president. Two writers give particulars of negotiations with undertakers in Dallas and Washington over arrangements for John F. Kennedy’s funeral. In Robert Kennedy and His Times (Houghton Mifflin, 1978), Arthur Schlesinger describes RFK’s arrival at Bethesda Hospital: There were so many details. The funeral home wanted to know how grand the coffin should be. “I was influenced by … that girl’s book on (burial) expenses … Jessica Mitford (The American Way of Death).… I remember making the decision based on Jessica Mitford’s book.… ...

When Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy decided that President Kennedy’s casket would remain closed while his body lay in state, she acted as many religious leaders wish that all bereaved families would.… They feel that it is pagan rather than Christian to focus attention on the corpse. It is worth noting that in other particulars as well, the conduct of the Kennedy funeral represented a departure from the prevailing funerary practices fostered by the American death industries. There were no flowers, by request of the Kennedy family. At no point did a Cadillac hearse intrude; the coffin, covered by a flag, was transported by gun carriage.

Queen Elizabeth, by her own wish, was not embalmed. Developments beyond her control caused her sealed, lead-lined coffin to lie in Whitehall for an unconscionable thirty-four days before interment. During this time, reports one of the ladies-in-waiting who sat as watchers, the body “burst with such a crack that it splitted the wood, lead, and cerecloth; whereupon the next day she was fain to be new trimmed up.”