How the Undertaker Became the Funeral Director

In early America, families handled death themselves. Over the 1800s that changed. This article follows how a trade that began with coffin-making became the profession of funeral directing. For the history of the words, see Coffin, Casket, Undertaker, Mortician.

Who cared for the dead before undertakers?

Families and, above all, women. Wikipedia says that from ancient Egypt to the early United States, women typically prepared the dead. They were called “layers out of the dead.” Funerals were held at home. BillionGraves notes that Victorian families transformed the front parlor for the occasion. By the late 19th century, Wikipedia says, funeral work had become male-dominated as funeral directing developed.

How did coffin-makers become undertakers?

Gradually. Early undertakers often worked as furniture makers or carpenters, because coffins were made locally, according to The Ancestor Hunt. A South Carolina State Library paper looked at how local firms described themselves. It found a shift from furniture dealers who also did undertaking, to firms that only did undertaking, to those calling themselves funeral directors. It also notes that coffin factories were a separate business from furniture makers who built a coffin when one was needed. A 1992 University of Delaware thesis on Baltimore describes how undertakers moved from only supplying coffins to running full-service funeral businesses in the late 19th century.

What changed with embalming?

Embalming made undertakers specialists. It spread after the Civil War. See Embalming and the American Civil War. Wikipedia says the first embalming school, in Cincinnati, was founded in 1882, and a second opened in Rochester in 1883. BillionGraves reports that Virginia passed the first embalming law in 1894, and that by 1900 twenty-four states had passed similar laws.

How did the trade organize?

State by state, and then nationally. Wikipedia says a Michigan funeral director, Alan Durfee, planned a successful statewide convention. Funeral directors from around the country then met in Rochester, New York, in 1882 and formed the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). BillionGraves says the group encouraged its members to see their work as a profession, and that membership helped families tell who was a professional. Historian Gary Laderman places the first undertakers’ associations in the late 19th century, according to Emory University.

How did the funeral leave the home?

Slowly, around the turn of the 20th century. The Kentucky Historical Society says early funeral parlors were often attached to the undertaker’s own house, with the embalming room and casket display at the back. Early embalmers often traveled to the family’s home. A local history page says home wakes and funerals continued in rural communities until the early 1900s. Then undertakers began offering their own homes for wakes and funerals, “so came the American funeral home.” The publisher’s description of Laderman’s book also dates the shift from home funerals to funeral homes to the turn of the century.

What happened to the word “undertaker”?

Many in the trade dropped it. Frazer Consultants says this new professionalism led many to choose the title “funeral director.” Accounts differ on when it happened. See Coffin, Casket, Undertaker, Mortician.

What is the history of Black funeral directors?

It is a separate and important one. The Virginia Quarterly Review says white funeral directors barred Black funeral directors from the NFDA, so they created their own association in 1924. The Tulane University finding aid says R. R. Reed of Chicago founded it on September 6, 1924, as the Independent National Funeral Directors Association. It later became the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association. The NFDA opened to African Americans in 1963, the Review says.

Historian Suzanne Smith’s book To Serve the Living describes how Black funeral directors were integral to the fight for freedom. NBC DFW reports that segregation kept Black families from white-owned funeral homes. It says Ebony magazine counted 3,000 Black-owned funeral parlors in 1953. During the civil rights movement, it adds, community meetings were held in Black funeral parlors, and funeral directors arranged transportation for civil rights leaders. In Kentucky, the Historical Society notes, the state undertakers’ association formed in 1882 was open only to white men. See also African American Homegoing Traditions.

What do critics and defenders say?

They disagree. Jessica Mitford’s 1963 book The American Way of Death accused the industry of exploiting grief, as Emory’s report describes. Laderman asked how the industry could have been so successful if Mitford were right, and his book treats funeral directors more favorably. See How Have Funerals Changed Over the Last 100 Years?.

What do we still not know?

A lot. The South Carolina paper says American undertaking is poorly documented, and that the classic 1955 history by Habenstein and Lamers is dated and generic. Practices varied by region, and many of the sources here come from the industry itself.

Where can I learn more?

See What Does a Funeral Director Do?, The Death Care Industry in America, and A Short History of the Coffin.