Rest in Peace
Subtitle: A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: March 6, 2003
Language: eng
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780195136081
First sentence: By the start of the twentieth century, the relationship between the living and the dead in America had begun to change dramatically.
Description: "In Rest in Peace, Gary Laderman traces the origins of American funeral rituals, from the evolution of embalming techniques during and after the Civil War and the shift from home funerals to funeral homes at the turn of the century to the increasing subordination of priests, ministers, and other religious figures to the funeral director throughout the twentieth century. In doing so he shows that far from manipulating vulnerable mourners, as Jessica Mitford claimed in her best-selling The American Way of Death (1963), funeral directors are highly respected figures whose services reflect the community's deepest needs and wishes. Indeed, Laderman shows that funeral directors generally give the people what they want when it is time to bury our dead. He reveals, for example, that the open casket, often criticized as barbaric, provides a deeply meaningful moment for friends and family who must say goodbye to their loved one. But he also shows how the dead often come back to life in the popular imagination to disturb the peace of the living."--Jacket.