Why Are We Embalmed? The History Behind an American Custom

Embalming is common enough in American funeral practice today that few people stop to ask where the custom actually came from — but its origin is specific, relatively recent, and tied directly to a particular moment in American history.

Was embalming common before the Civil War?

No - before the mid-1800s, embalming was largely unknown to ordinary Americans. It existed in limited medical and experimental settings, but wasn’t part of typical funeral practice - most burials happened quickly, close to home, without any need for extended preservation.

Why did the Civil War change this?

The Civil War changed this rapidly. For the first time, enormous numbers of soldiers were dying far from their families, who wanted bodies brought home for burial rather than buried near distant battlefields. This created a genuinely new logistical challenge: preserving a body well enough to survive a journey that could take days or longer. Embalmers set up practices near battlefields specifically to meet this demand, embalming soldiers so families could receive and bury them at home.

How did Lincoln’s funeral affect embalming’s popularity?

The event that likely did more than any other to introduce embalming to the broader American public was Abraham Lincoln’s own funeral in 1865. His body was embalmed and carried on an extensive, multi-city funeral train tour, allowing enormous crowds to view his remains in city after city along the route. For many Americans, this was their first direct exposure to a well-preserved body displayed publicly - a striking, high-profile example that helped move embalming from a wartime necessity toward something more broadly recognized and, gradually, requested.

How did embalming go from wartime exception to common custom?

In the decades following the war, embalming gradually shifted from an emergency wartime practice into a standard part of American funeral service, adopted by an emerging funeral industry that built services around it. What started as a practical solution to a specific, urgent problem became, over time, a widely expected part of the funeral process for many American families.

Is embalming still done for the same reasons today?

Not exactly - today embalming is typically chosen to allow a viewing or to provide extra time before a service, rather than for long-distance wartime transport specifically, though the underlying idea of temporarily preserving a body for practical reasons traces directly back to this same origin.

Understanding this origin helps explain something that surprises many people: embalming isn’t a universal requirement rooted in law or hygiene necessity - it’s a specific American custom with a specific historical starting point. That’s part of why it isn’t legally required in most circumstances today, and why families can reasonably choose an alternative like refrigeration without going against some deeper, ancient tradition - the tradition itself is younger than many assume.

Historical details are presented at a general level - specific accounts and dates can vary across historical sources.