2023 marked the 60th anniversary of Jessica Mitford’s book related to the customs of American funerals, “The American Way of Death“.  If you are much younger than I am you probably don’t even remember it or have never heard of the book.

 

It is my opinion that funeral directors and funeral homes were looked on as beacons of fairness and honesty in America prior to Mitford’s book.  When a death occurred the local funeral director was called and supplied the equipment and knowledge necessary to allow the bereaved to honor, mourn, and respect their loved on in a way that most families preferred at the time.  After the book was published and released however, many people in American never looked at their funeral director in the same positive light again.

 

You see, Mitford questioned the motives that funeral directors and funeral home owners had for perpetuating the “traditional earth burial” in America — complete with embalming, retail casket sales, and retail vault sales.  In many respects Mitford looked on some of those traditions, such as embalming and the purchase of burial vaults, simply as a way for the funeral home to make excess profits on each death while leaving the family no other affordable options.  She seemed to see no value in the survivors thoughts on grief resolution and what might work for each family in that respect.

 

Some will go as far as telling you that it was the Mitford’s best-selling book’s popularity that was the impetus to the “Funeral Rule” imposed by the Federal Trade Commission on funeral homes in America over twenty years later in 1984.  There is also the fact that the cremation rate in America in the early 1960s was only 3.6%.  And, there are those that blame Mitford’s book, and attack on funeral homes and funeral directors as the cause of that rate increasing almost 20-fold over the years.

 

I was pretty small and in elementary school in the mid-1960s when the book was all the rage in America.  My dad was a good person and one who never got rich in the funeral business.  He worked hard to “serve” his community whenever he was called on.  However, I do remember a distinct change in his attitude about business when the book became popular.

 

He seemed to no longer be “the good old funeral director”.  He now was the one who had to defend his business in the community.  I attended a funeral planning community education class with my dad at the time and can distinctly remember my dad being on his defensive heels all night answering pointed questions brought to light by Mitford’s book.   I look back on what was an unfortunate result of the Mitford book — that being that all funeral establishments got painted with the same broad brush.  Once the Mitford “thought process” became culturally popular there was a change in attitude. . . and if you lived with a funeral director you could see it and how it bothered them.

 

I’ve often felt bad that my dad was the proprietor of the funeral home at this time of funeral business mistrust.  My grandfather before him and myself behind him in the operation of the funeral home never had to defend what we did for people who called us.  My dad was as “good as they come” yet it was his turn at the helm of the family business at the “Mitford” time.

 

If there is one good thing about Mitford’s book it is probably that it was ahead of its time as far as criticizing professions go.  Looking at it realistically it probably made funeral home owners take a good, long look into the mirror.  It happened in the mid-1960s, but when I came into the profession in 1980 it was mostly old, forgotten news.  My guess is that any funeral homes that did prey on clientele cleaned up their act by the time the FTC Funeral Rule came into effect.

 

By the 1980s it seems that the funeral industry was being policed and policing itself with rules brought on by the FTC and various state agencies.  The American consumer turned their attention to Wall Street and names like Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken and the savings and loan industry where fraud was running rampant and to banks where various “required fees” on customer accounts were being questioned.  In essence, anything that Mitford had accused funeral home owners of certainly seemed inconsequential to consumer losses as compared to what was happening in the big board rooms across the country during the 1980s.

 

So, it may be, like many things that happen, that the Mitford book and the timing of such may have actually improved funeral service and helped funeral homes focus in on some less noticed, but very important services such as aftercare and preneed that brought greater value to consumers paying for funeral services.  It may have also made funeral homes “up their game” when it came to the financial aspects of what they provided.

 

Yet, I think that to some extent the “Mitford viewpoint” is still with us.  But, that may be good in that it keeps us on our toes as business people in giving much thought to how we make our living while still providing choice at equitable prices to the consumer public.

 

If you are not aware of Mitford’s “American Way of Death”, here are a couple recent articles on it and its affect:

• Funeral industry feels Bay Area author’s influence decades after death.  The San Francisco Examiner (CA)
• Fond Farewells:  Jessica Mitford.  Lapham’s Quarterly

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• QR codes n gravestones provide digital memory for those left behind.  ABC Channel 23 – Bakersfield (CA)
• Maryland Supreme Court weighing future of historic Black cemetery in closely watched case.  The Daily Record (MD)
• Vandals destroy headstones, steal plaques from Compton cemetery.  CBS News Los Angeles (CA)
• Flax Bourton:  Crackdown on funeral directors leaving bodies in mortuary.  BBC News (Great Britain)

 

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,447 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily:

“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”