Session One: Silence, Art and Ritual

Gary Laderman, Ph.D.
Department of Religion, Emory University

Why Embalm?: The Lifeblood of an Industry

From the early part of the twentieth century, funeral directors and others in the industry have offered a variety of explanations for the presence of embalming in American death rituals. While some emphasize public health and sanitation, others stress the solace the body provides to grieving survivors, and still others champion scientific advancements in the preservation of the dead, most agree on one point: embalming is the bedrock of the industry. For funeral directors to convince the public, and themselves, that they are indeed professionals who provide important services to the living--services that depend in large measure on the accessibility of pleasing, familiar-looking corpses that speak to the life lived and disguise the cause of death--embalming had to be located at the center of an elaborate regimen of technically sophisticated skills, bureaucratically informed practices, and culturally convincing symbolic actions that accompany the exit of the body from living society.

Within the first quarter of the twentieth century, embalming became the enduring signature of the nascent American funeral, the lifeblood of the quickly growing industry. Although it was in the process of becoming fully institutionalized as an American practice--through the establishment of schools, professional societies, legal regulations bearing on licensing and use of chemicals, etc.--some uncertainty about its future crept into public self-reflections of funeral men, especially the pioneers who began to see a new generation of funeral directors appear. Howard Eckels, chemical manufacturer and founder of the Eckels College of Embalming in Philadelphia, wrote in his 1921 article, "Can Embalming Be Saved?":

Those of us who have given a lifetime of study and thought to the subject know how many illusions, how many will-o'-the-wisps have flitted across our paths during the past ten or twenty years. We cannot expect, however, that those of another generation will have our viewpoint or get the entire benefit of our perspective.... Embalming is worth saving, because if it be weakened the whole structure of our professional relations with our clients falls, and we again become merely commercial men selling a commercial product, the casket, along with unprofessional and unskilled service.1

Eckels understands embalming as a practice that stands outside of the mundane, economic transactions that take place between client and funeral director, even though clients ultimately pay for it. The empirical, scientific discoveries made by American funeral men have led to tremendous progress in embalming, and the embalmed body, for Eckels and others, is the vessel which allows funeral directors to transcend their status as "commercial men selling a commercial product."

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What is it about the embalmed body that transforms the funeral into something more than a simple financial transaction of goods and services? From early in the twentieth century a series of responses to this question emerged, with most still present on the lips of contemporary funeral directors. One of the most common justifications for embalming by individuals within the industry is that it has public value: to embalm the dead is protect the living from deadly influences. The virtue of preservation is another typical reason given by funeral men and women, which is not surprising considering the keen interest in ancient Egyptian practices. Although preservation is key, the logic of embalming is also supported by critical modern arguments about human psychology, universal religious sensibilities, and the aesthetics of death.

An embalmed body is sanitary, and therefore not threatening to the living; an embalmed body can be preserved, made to fit into the hectic schedule of people traveling long distances to attend the funeral; but most significant to funeral directors, an embalmed body must be seen in order to have value as a source of familial and communal healing. Contrary to the common, familiar critiques against the industry, these ritual specialists argue that the cosmetic aspect of what came to be known as "restorative art" does not lead to the denial of death, but rather to a safe, humane confrontation with its undeniable reality. Embalming allows survivors an opportunity to look death square in the face and in its still silence and recognize the finality without experiencing the terror and dread typically associated with corpses and the processes of dying. One writer coolly and rationally gives the following explanation for embalming: "Humanity, being socially and sentimentally minded, derives a great deal of mental satisfaction from mental images. The last view of a departed one may bring consolation if evidences of disease and suffering have been eradicated."2 For this and other reasons, embalming is often identified as a "healing art" by many within the industry.

In an article from the 1920s, C. F. Callaway, a well-known educator in the field, notes the increasing demand among funeral men, and even some women, for instruction in embalming techniques. After informing his readers that "Accidental deaths are decidedly on the increase," he makes the argument about the artistic merits of embalming and the embalmers' aspirations toward what many artists strive to achieve, an idealized representation of a reality no longer present--in this case, a living person: "The rebuilding of features is really a work of art. It all is the work of an artist and requires the technic [sic] of an artist to fully perform this feat.... In every human face there are certain points that are essential and that we must bring out if we would produce a face that is in any degree natural.... We must see not the face before us, but the face we would have before us."3

The artistry involved in preparing a body for its final appearance requires many essential components, including: appropriate training and practice, if the living are truly to transcend the suffering and disorder that accompanies the death of a close relation; a desire to engage in this kind of work that few people in society possess, which contributes to a sense of election among those who make the decision to enter the guild; and a commitment to serving the public, who demand that specialists oversee the removal of their dead in an acceptable, respectful manner.

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How a dead body looks to survivors is of the utmost importance to individuals within the industry. A successful funeral is one with an open casket and an embalmed body that appears familiar and nonthreatening to the visitors. Significant increases in accidental and work-related deaths, as well as the appearance of new forms of disease that ravage the body, led embalmers to experiment with reconstructive surgery on the cadaver. Indeed, an entirely new form of surgery emerged in the first half of the century that relied on inventive surgical interventions and innovative artificial manipulations, including the utilization of cosmetics, to restore the face of the dead individual. In a trade article on the state of embalming in 1921, Thomas Hurst identifies this important development, as well as situations in which these kinds of efforts should definitely not be pursued:

Demi-surgery is a name given the art of restoring mutilated features in accident cases, or in cases where a cancer has eaten part of the face away, or maybe a bullet or stab wound.... I have seen and done many wonderful things by resorting to demi- surgery, such as making a new upper lip, cutting out a cancer on the face and filling it in to match the other side, but if the head is crushed, nothing can be done and it is better that the body not be viewed.4

The principal aim of the artistic reconstruction? Hurst explains, "Proficiency in this field of endeavor will enable the mortician to improve one of his greatest services to the public, and that is the alleviation of grief."5 Funeral directors and embalmers understand their duties as a moral imperative with real therapeutic results: laying hands on the body of the dead for the relief of the human community is not only the basis for an economic transaction, it was also an ethical, religious duty that in their experiences eases the pain of those in mourning.

The chemical companies were particularly interested in successful embalming procedures: they were apparently confident that a natural-looking corpse would not only ease the suffering of the grieving family, but also be a potential source of good public relations with the local community who attend funerals and care about appearances. In one advertisement from 1928, for example, an embalming fluid company asks what becomes the key question of any self- respecting funeral director: "Shall the last picture become a comforting memory?"6 This is indeed the crux of the matter. From early on, the industry was built on rhetorical and ritual links between the last look at the body, the creation of a "memory-image" or "memory picture," the realization that death has occurred, and meaningful healing in the experience of death. The production of a memorable corpse, therefore, requires a delicate balance of capturing both life and death in the features of the departed: the funeral director must present a body that simultaneously captures a living personality and forces the living to confront the fact of death.

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One of the major fluid companies emphasizes the value of the embalmed body, and the weight it carries in local community relations, in a bulletin entitled "The Man of the Hour." This bulletin, one of a series in the Champion Expanding Encyclopedia of Mortuary Practice, was published by the Department of Service and Research, a division of the Champion Company, and distributed to funeral homes throughout the states. It begins:

He is the dead man. Although his tongue be silenced, this is his hour. He may have been a timorous soul while here, but now he has become a hero.... He may have been a liar, but the message he speaks in death is true. Regardless of his character, he will have an audience. His audience will be small or large in proportion to his few or many friends. They will be impressed by the truth of what he is saying, and he is talking about you, to whom the duty of preparing his remains was entrusted.... You cannot refute his message if it is unfavorable to you. If he has praise for you, it is worth more than all the advertising space you can buy.7

The author goes on to imagine a scenario in which the customer is unsatisfied with the appearance of the body (with the body "speaking" to the audience, sending such messages as "Look at my swollen neck and cauliflower ears!"8 ). Positive word-of-mouth about the corpse after the funeral is clearly a critical element in the success or failure of a funeral home, according to this piece. If the skills of the embalmer allow the body to communicate to the audience, "I present to you a picture of me that is a true resemblance of my healthy, vigorous condition when we were so closely associated," the rewards will come to both the funeral director, who will have an increase in business, and the mourners, whose memories will be sufficiently comforted by a last look. The author imagines the dead body saying to the living visitors: "Even though I have been dead for several days, there is no odor to remind you of unpleasant things. Such, indeed, is the memory of my appearance that I would have you carry, and this you owe to the man who was responsible for preparing my body for burial.... He realized that his greatest obligation was to present my remains, for a last view, in such a condition that my appearance at the time would alleviate some of your sorrow, rather than increase it."9 Although others claim the funeral director's "greatest obligation" is to the bottom line, the reality for many within the industry is that it refers to a higher calling.

Whatever the dead body may "say" to the living, the success or failure of embalming depends on the expertise and knowledge of the embalmer. Another educator and prolific writer within the funeral industry, Charles A. Renouard, son of educational pioneer Auguste Renouard, describes the difficult balance between technological intervention and preservation of natural characteristics. In his discussion of the science of embalming and the physiology of decay, it is evident that the embalmer is in a sobering battle with the forces of nature, forces that work at cross-purposes with preservation. In his 1940 article, "The Real Meaning of Embalming," Renouard writes:

Modern embalming is a physico [sic] chemical proposition based on well defined cosmic influences that exert strange and relentless decomposition on everything that has served its earthly purpose. Nature exerts, without discrimination, that well balanced process of putrefaction, without which we would be overwhelmed with incalculable amounts of dead material on earth. While nature performs these exacting functions to reduce all dead organic material, we, as embalmers, must be just as exacting in our process of applying antiseptics and disinfectants to these organic substances to prevent nature from carrying out this universal process so necessary to our wellbeing [sic].10

While Renouard focuses on the scientific theories behind the embalming procedure, he does not fail to note the goal of modern embalming: making the body look natural for the mourners.

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Many individuals within the industry assume that their authority on the subject of embalming, an authority based on education, experience, and artistry, is enough to legitimate their professional standing in American society. Fortunately for the growing class of morticians, however, the undeniably strong demand by consumers from the beginning of the century for their services, and a presentable corpse, confirmed their own perceptions. A. O. Spriggs, who wrote a textbook on restorative art in 1946, explains that, "Perhaps one of the saddest human experiences is the necessity of committing a loved one to the earth without being permitted to bestow a farewell look upon the features to be laid away forever." Spriggs expresses some caution, like so many other writers do, about the limits of postmortem plastic surgery and paying attention to the wishes of the family when the face has been damaged beyond repair. He then argues that, although morticians should be circumspect about the use of restorative surgery, a growing demand, fueled by the publicÕs deep-rooted need to have a last look, requires that they remain proficient in these skills.11

In another textbook on embalming from the 1950s, The Principles and Practice of Embalming, the authors cover some of the reasons for embalming the dead. They begin with the practical, and scientifically obvious to them, issue of public health. After a discussion of the virtues of disinfecting the dead body, they turn to more religious and psychological concerns. It is self-evident to the authors that "funeral service is built entirely upon... a feeling of respect and reverence for the beloved dead." Without these sentiments, they argue, the dead would simply be a "bit of refuse to be disposed of as quickly, easily and economically as possible."12 Because some Americans may have a less-than-reverential attitude toward the dead and the funeral, morticians feel a social responsibility to preserve the integrity of the dead, which in turn reinforces the integrity of their chosen profession:

Crudeness and disrespect have no more place in the presence of the dead than they have in the presence of the living.... Every student mortician must learn from his very first day of contact with this vocation that he must, throughout his entire professional career, regard every deceased person as a beloved parent or brother or sister.... The unnecessary exposure of any body, the admission of unauthorized persons into the preparation room, the regarding of the deceased as an object rather than as the sacred remains of a human being--these are crimes against decency.... We, the morticians of America, are the protectors of the modesty and dignity of the dead.... The care and disposition of the dead is, in all of its aspects, a religious rite which requires all of the dignity and solemnity accorded the other sacred customs and procedures of any church or religious group.13

Whether or not all funeral directors subscribed to the view expressed in this quotation and saw their duties in explicitly religious terms, by the middle of the twentieth century embalming the dead was a basic feature in American funerals. Before Jessica Mitford leveled her harsh and hilarious attack on the industry in The American Way of Death, embalming had already received its share of public criticism. Yet in spite of these highly publicized diatribes, undertakers continued to insist that the practice served a variety of purposes related to the public good, family unity, individual psychology, and, for sure, their own economic survival. From the pioneers to the present generation, embalming plays an absolutely vital role in the successful funeral service. What Mitford held up for ridicule, many within the industry, as well as many in the local communities that supported neighborhood funeral homes, understood as a socially significant, if not outright sacred, duty for the living.

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If the only evidence for this position on embalming remained within the institutional literature of the industry, it would be easy to dismiss it as a form of propaganda. Other forms of popular support for this view, however, indicate that many outside of the industry prefer their dead be embalmed. The numerous letters and cards that funeral directors have received from their satisfied, and deeply appreciative, customers is a case in point. One of many examples reads:

Words are so inadequate to express my thanks and gratitude to you, for your kindness shown me and B--. "He was truly beautiful." My prayers were long and many for a miracle that B-- be found; and God saw fit to grant this. Then my prayers were for each of you in your work, that I might see B-- once again, and again He granted another miracle.14

Without question, funeral directors and others within the industry also engaged in innovative rhetorical acrobatics that accounted for embalming in the lives of Americans: embalming was presented as a thoroughly modern practice, yet contiguous with certain American traditions; it was explained as a scientific procedure that also had religious and psychological benefits; and it was understood as a highly technical, hygienically beneficial intervention that required the delicate skills of an artist. But embalming could not have become the lifeblood of the industry if it did not satisfy some demand on the part of grieving consumers. From the early years of the twentieth century to the final decades, the appearance of the dead, and the desire among the living for a memorable last look at the individual, has been a hallmark of the American way of death. Over the course of the century, many did not want, and were in fact outraged, at the inclusion of this practice in the treatment of the dead. But the success of an industry--a multibillion dollar industry by the 1970s--depended on, indeed was anchored by, the visible embalmed body. While the relatively minor successes of cremation, memorial and funeral societies, and do-it-yourself funerals must be acknowledged, and the evidence of questionable, if not outright illegal, activities by some within the industry must be admitted, embalming makes the prosperity of the industry possible. There are, of course, other reasons for this prosperity as well--but the embalmed body is squarely at the center of the cultural history of the funeral industry.

This text is excerpted from LadermanÕs Death in Modern America: A Cultural History of the Funeral Home, forthcoming in Fall 2002 from Oxford University Press.

Notes

1 Howard S. Eckels, "Can Embalming be Saved?" The Sunnyside, October 15, 1921, 1.

2 A. O. Spriggs, Champion Restorative Art (Springfield, Ohio: The Champion Company, 1946), 18.

3 C. F. Callaway, "Rebuilding Features--A Work of Art for the Embalmer," The American Funeral Director, v. 51, n. 8, August 1928, 60. For another example of this emphasis on what is "natural," see "How Do You Act?," The Southern Funeral Director, v. 17, n. 4, November 1927, 62.

4 Thomas Hurst, "Embalming as Practiced Today," The Casket, v. 46, n. 7, July 1, 1921, 61. For a brief history of the changing terms, see Charles O. Dhonau and G. Joseph Prager, Manual of Restorative Art (Cincinnati, Ohio: The Embalming Book Company), 1932. Also see Howard S. Eckels' discussion of this procedure, Derma Surgery (Philadelphia: H. S. Eckels & Co., nd).

5 Hurst, 21.

6 Advertisement, Casket & Sunnyside, v. 58, n. 8, April 15, 1928, 13.

7 "The Man of the Hour," Champion Expanding Encyclopedia of Mortuary Practices, na, v. 2, n. 78, December 1936/January 1937, 309. Other titles in the series include "Massage the Trunk!", "The Trocar," and "Important Considerations for Summer."

8 Ibid, 309.

9 Ibid, 311.

10 Charles A. Renouard, "The Real Meaning of Embalming," Casket & Sunnyside, v. 70, n. 7, July 1940, 40.

11 Spriggs, 5, 8-9.

12 Strub and Frederick, 4.

13 Ibid, 5.

14 F-- Funeral Home, 1975 letter.

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