Increasing Costs of Funerary Services

The above images depict the shift in funerary expenditures from 1929 through 1960. These figures represent the costs per death, however, rather than total costs per burial. Both are images taken of files located in the Jessica Mitford Papers at the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center.

The above images are taken from Eugene F. Foran's Funeral Service Facts and Figures in which he presents the data of a 1958 survey of the funeral industry's income and expenditures. These figures proved informative for Jessica Mitford in researching for her 1963 exposé, The American Way of Death, and can be found in the Jessica Mitford papers at the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center.

Monetary inflation is a considerable factor in the rising cost of funerary services, but, according to Perianne Boring in her article "Death of the Death Care Industry and Eternal Life Online", it is not the only cause-- inflation has caused a surge in prices among all industries. Avarice, it would seem, is another driving force behind the spike in funeral prices depicted in the figures shared here. According to Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, "We’ve always said that what the industry calls a traditional funeral is a commercially created tradition put together to extract the maximum dollar value from the grieving. [...] In America, we’ve internalized the notion that the more we spend, the more we love. The dead are still just as dead as they were before — and you’re still going to miss them just as much." This greed manifests itself in a number of ways, as explained by Mitford in her book, The American Way of Death Revisted, a later edition of her original 1963 The American Way of Death. One such example is the self-establishment of cemeteries as non-profit corporations: "At first glance it would seem an act of purest altruism that somebody should go to all the trouble, at absolutely no profit to himself, to start a cemetery wherein his fellow man may be laid to eternal rest. A second glance discloses that the nonprofit aspect removes the necessity to pay income tax on grave sales. And a really close look discloses that the profits that are now routinely extracted by promoters of 'nonprofit' cemeteries are spectacular beyond the dreams of the most avaricious real estate subdivider." (Mitford, The American Way of Death Revisted, pg. 83). Modern transportation makes this even more expedient, allowing for the development of cemeteries far removed from high-priced residential areas, thereby facilitating not only the cemeterian's tax free, but also bargain land where he may then manipulate the property however he chooses in order to maximize profit. Some examples include (1) the replacement of tombstones with gravemarkers, thereby eliminating "the need for handtrimming of grave plots and saves 75% of the maintenance cost" (Mitford 84), (2) the sale of "companion spaces" for occupancy by husbands and wives (ibid.), and (3) the upward expansion provided by the community mausoleum.

This review of Le Roy Bowman's "The American Funeral" examines the role of grief in convincing one to purchase a more expensive funeral for their deceased loved one. It can be found in the Jessica Mitford papers at The University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center.

Notes from Arthur Colton on the psychology of viewing the decased body. This image was taken from the Jessica Mitford papers at the Harry Ransom Center.

An article in the National FS Journal examining the role of grief as a persuasive factor in purchasing more expensive funeral services. To this end, this article reviews the efficacy of price advertisement in manipulating grief for the undertaker's profit. This article was found in the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin.

Jessica Mitford's handwritten notes on the cost of funeral services with respect to other forms of spending such as education and healthcare. These notes were found in the Harry Ransom Center's Jessica Mitford papers at The University of Texas at Austin.

The funeral service also entails the elaborate dressing of the deceased, enabling the beautification of the corpse not only for purposes of preservation, but of restoration. The latter may be considered problematic in that it masks the reality of death through monetary investment in ostentatious decoration: intricately designed and personalized caskets, fine clothing, make-up, etc. Joshua Slocum was correct in his observation that "the more we spend, the more we love"; we feel a moral obligation to our loved ones, particuarly after they have passed, that necessitates overwhelming funeral expenditures and lavish services. But to do so is also a means of alleviating guilt, thereby allowing one to separate oneself from the harsh and incontrovertible reality of death. Death conjures up very specific and grotesque images, ones we do not always wish to recognize in our own loved ones. To adorn the deceased in the finest funeral accoutrements is, in a way, to separate them from such horrid images, to quell the anxieties born of the realization that our loved ones have fallen victim to that which we all fear: death. The review of "The American Funeral" shown above speaks to this idea: "A universal contention of funeral directors is that the last look at the 'restored' face of the deceased creates an image that remains permanently in the memory of the bereaved person. The burden of the claim is that the 'restorative' operation of the undertaker is of great and lasting value in bereavement and the adjustive process. No evidence that this claim is justified is to be found in the works of the psychologists." Arthur Colton, too, notes that "viewers buy the idea of rejection of death, and life in death" with lavish services that obscure the harsh reality of death.