Rest in peace : a cultural history of death and the funeral home in twentieth-century America / Gary Laderman.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Laderman, Gary, 1962-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Undertakers and undertaking--United States.
• Funeral supplies industry--United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (296 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Though it has often been passionately criticized--as fraudulent, exploitative, even pagan--the American funeral home has become nearly as inevitable as death itself, an institution firmly embedded in our culture. But how did the funeral home come to hold such a position? What is its history? And is it guilty of the charges sometimes leveled against it?. 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 incre

Contents:

Contents; Acknowledgements; Prologue; Introduction: 1963; 1 From House Calls to Funeral Homes: Changing Relations Between the Living and the Dead; 2 Explaining the American Funeral, 1918-1963; 3 Good Grief! Jessica Mitford Makes the New York Times Bestseller List; 4 Keeping the Dead in Place: Old and New Patterns of Consumption; 5 Final Frontiers: Into the Twenty-First Century; Epilogue: 9/11; Notes; Index

Notes:

• Description based upon print version of record.
• Includes bibliographical references (p. 217-236) and index.
• Description based on metadata supplied by the publisher and other sources.

ISBN:

• 1-280-47348-7
• 0-19-534397-2
• 1-4237-6117-0

OCLC:

476107086