The American Way of Death Revisited

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.”[18] 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.”