From the Death reading list. Author Gary Laderman is a religion professor; he tracks changing attitudes toward death in 18th and 19th century America. The book starts with a description of George Washington’s funeral procession in Providence, Rhode Island in 1799 – minute guns, muffled church bells, a long stream of mourners behind the bier and coffin, and the interment of the coffin in the crypt. And a similar event in New York. And in Philadelphia. The catch here is Washington died at home in Mount Vernon and was buried in the family tomb on the grounds; the elaborate funeral processions in other cities all had empty coffins. At the time, if somebody important died, you had a funeral procession, regardless of the location of the guest of honor. Most ordinary Americans didn’t get a procession, of course; but like Washington most people died at home and were buried at home – since most Americans were rural farmers, they had the room for that. If the body needed to be carried somewhere for burial, it was done on the shoulders of pallbearers (in a creepy note, if an infant died, older children were often recruited to carry the coffin). The body went in the ground quickly; embalming, cremation, and dissection were all anathema (it was allowed to pack some ice in the coffin if any were available). There was also an almost necrophiliac fascination with the process of decay; Laderman cites several diary entries from people (usually men with their wives or women with their children) who would visit the tomb every so often, open the coffin, and see how things were coming along.

This all changed – as did so many other aspects of American life – with the Civil War. Parents wanted their sons sent home; given transport speed at the time this wasn’t practical unless something was done to prevent or slow down decay. Embalmers showed up as soon at the battle was over, set up tents, and went to work. It was an extremely lucrative process – one embalmer noted annual gross income of $80000, roughly $1.2M in modern purchasing power. The war also led to a change in attitude toward dissection; the Army created a medical museum and the first curator, Dr. John Brinton, wandered around the battlefields looking for interesting wounds. At one point he heard of an unusual bone, and was in the process of excavating the owner when his comrades showed up. Although initially hostile, Brinton was apparently eloquent in explaining the value of medical specimens; after a while the soldiers allowed that if he was able, the bone owner would cheerfully give it up, and it was duly done.

I once had something of a professional interesting in this sort of thing; it looked like a light rail line would be going through a cemetery that dated to the 1870s. The EPA had done some work on groundwater contamination – including drilling a monitoring well right through a coffin; I bet there was some consternation in the sampling crew when they opened the split spoon – and found elevated levels of arsenic and other heavy metals. Alas for my ghoulish anticipation; the line didn’t end up going there and I was no longer employed by the time it got to the general area.

Appropriate illustrations, an extensive reference list, and good end notes. About the only drawback is Laderman’s focus is exclusively Protestant attitudes. ( )