Just enough to put him away decent : death care, life extension, and the making of a healthier South, 1900-1955 / Kristine M. McCusker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCusker, Kristine M., author.

Series:

Illinois scholarship online.

Illinois scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Death--Social aspects--Southern States--History--20th century.

Death.

Burial--Social aspects--Southern States--History--20th century.

Burial.

Life expectancy--Southern States--History--20th century.

Life expectancy.

Medical care--Southern States--History--20th century.

Medical care.

Discrimination in medical care--Southern States--History--20th century.

Discrimination in medical care.

Southern States--Race relations--History--20th century.

Southern States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations ;

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2023.

Summary:

As the twentieth century began, Black and white southerners alike dealt with low life expectancy and poor healthcare in a region synonymous with early death. But the modernization of death care by a diverse group of actors changed not only death rituals but fundamental ideas about health and wellness. Kristine McCusker charts the dramatic transformation that took place when southerners in particular and Americans in general changed their thinking about when one should die, how that death could occur, and what decent burial really means. As she shows, death care evolved from being a community act to a commercial one where purchasing a purple coffin and hearse ride to the cemetery became a political statement and the norm. That evolution also required interactions between perfect strangers, especially during the world wars as families searched for their missing soldiers.

Contents:

Intro

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Death and the South

Part One. Death and the New South

1. Selling Our Dead: Evolving Rural Burial Practice

A Deadly Landscape

Visiting and Informing

Preparing the Body

Committing the Body

Cemeteries

Remembering and Mourning the Dead

A Practical Approach to Infant Deaths

2. Heavenly Reunions and Progressive Reform

Give Me that (New) Old Time Religion

Evangelizing Public Health in the South

Southern Diseases and Southern Healthcare

Private Charities

3. Life Extension and the Emergence of a Death Commerce System

The Emergence of Death Professionals

The Expansion of Burial Societies

The Expansion of Burial Insurance and the Introduction of Life Extension

Insurance Agents and Weekly Dues

A Statistical Assist

The Federal Government and Death Registration Areas

The Federal Government and the Children's Bureau

County and State Efforts at Life Extension

Part Two. World War I and Challenging Southern Death Care

4. Lonely Coffins: World War I and the Spanish Influenza Epidemic

Preparing for War

Gazing Out from the South

Honoring the Confederacy

Going to War-Preparing for Death

Disease, Death, and the Military

The Spanish Influenza Epidemic

Civilians Become Ill and Die from the Flu

Incipient Healthcare Structures and the Flu

Noble Death and the Flu

5. Remembering the War, Forgetting the Flu, Burying the Military Dead

The Emergence of Military Death Care

How Did My Soldier Die?

Planning for Repatriation

Bringing the Soldiers Home

Families Remember the Dead

Southern States Reclaim Their Soldiers

Photography and Other Postwar Memorials

Part Three. Death Care in the 1920s South.

6. Purple Coffins and Cadillac Hearses: Purchasing a Good Death

Building a Modern South

Funeral Home Expansion in Cities

Deadly Cities

New Palaces of Consumption-for the Dead

Consumerism in the Cemetery

Expanding the Funeral Ritual

William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying

7. Indifference, Shame, Selfishness, and Wrong Living: New Ways to Grieve and Comfort

Freud and 1920s Assessments of Grief

The Etiquette of Mourning and Comfort

Religious Responses to Grief and Mourning

Older Rites Transformed

Printed Material

Curating Grief and Death Care

Nell Mellichamp

8. "Health Is Just Everything": Expanding Healthcare in the South in the 1920s

The USPHS and the American Red Cross Discover a Deadly South

The ARC Saves Lives

Ignorance or Poor Hospital Care?

Healthcare in a Pamphlet, a Statistical Abstract, or a Seven Million Dollar Check

Economic Diseases

State Health Department Responses

Secular and Sacred Sites of Good Health

Private Charities and Educational Institutions

Corporate Paternalism and Good Health

Death Commerce Confronts Early Death

Segregation and Tuberculosis

Perceptions of Life, Age, and Disease

Part Four. Death and the New Deal

9. Making Deadly Landscapes Healthier: The First New Deal

Death, Grief, and the Great Depression

A Grief Acknowledged

Volunteerism and the Great Depression

The First New Deal

Divorcing Death from the Land

Clashing Death Cultures

Patriotic Bodies and the New Deal

Paperwork Confirms Ritual

Race and Southern Landscapes of Death

The Civilian Conservation Corps and Creating Healthy Men

10. Revitalizing a Sick South: The Second and Third New Deals

The Works Progress Administration

Public Health Nurses

The WPA's Cultural Work

Travel Guides and Other Southern Car Narratives.

The Social Security Act of 1935

The Third New Deal

Mortality Rates

Living Past Three Score and Ten

Part Five. Dying in World War II

11. Flying and Dying as Americans

A Modern Military Goes to War

Confirmed Deaths and Notifications

Flying and Dying Overseas: Harold Leazer

Flying and Dying Overseas: William J. Faulkner Jr.

Conclusion

12. Muddy Roads and Sacred Duties: Bringing Home the World War II Dead

Declaring the Missing Dead

The Continued Search for How Soldiers Died

Honoring the Dead

Bringing the Bodies Home

Escorting the Bodies Home

Mississippians Escorted Home

Epilogue: Death in the Twenty-First-Century Suburban South

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on January 10, 2024).

Also issued in print: 2023.

ISBN:

9780252054402

0252054407

OCLC:

1358758807