This page is a list of links to be used as a resource accompanying the late Hon. Jessica Mitford's "The American Way of Death" (1963)/ "The American Way of Death Revisited" (1998).
[Added 26 November 2001] Thomas Lynch, undertaker/ poet
[Added 21 November 2001: and with thanks to Karen Leonard] Final Passages is a Californian equivalent of the Natural Death Centre, London N.W.2 as listed on my The London Way of Death page.
[Added 6 October 2001] I know this is not American, but it is still a good link for those with an interest in Parisian history. It expands on the history given in Phillipe Aries' "L'Homme devant La Mort". Les Saint Innocents et L'Ossuaire.
[Added 16 October 2001] I know this isn't American either: The London Way of Death gives my list of London cemeteries Friends' sites, as well as some other information.
[Added 25 October 2001] This tale of the death of a Very Fat Man certainly isn't American.
The Jessica Mitford Memorial Site is well worth a visit, and incorporates various (hostile) reviews of her books including "The American Way of Death" - ripostes and refutations are also included. Though her book is hilarious, Jessica Mitford could see as well as anyone that death itself is not in the slightest bit funny - but how better to point out the sentimental, unhealthy attitudes of today, and compare to the realism, resignation and dignified acceptance that were common in the past, than to use satire and mockery?
Visit Toni Riss's online store for a selection of (notably) videos on embalming, as well as various other items including books and some novelties.
This topic is not mentioned in Jessica Mitford's book but seems to fit well here. The main, if not only, US service organisation for cryogenically suspending whole bodies, or just heads/ brains, whether that be by deep-freezing or vitrifying (turning to glass), is Alcor. Imagine coming back as a disembodied head - desperate for a cigarette after hundreds of years in a vat of liquid nitrogen, but unable to light it yourself! If you go for the basic head job, at 50,000 dollars, the rest of you is cremated. Whole-body suspension is an additional 70,000.
A "casket" is what we Limeys would call a coffin. But these are the heavy, ornate American variety of coffin, often made of metal. The top half of the lid opens separately as in the thumbnail pictures on the sites listed below - a custom that Phillippe Aries points out, originated in the Mediterranean. A casket with a gasket is referred to as a "sealer". The casket manufacturers sell wholesale only and do not quote prices on their sites.
It is worth observing at this point that the Order for the Burial of the Dead in the Book of Common Prayer does not refer to a coffin at any point. It refers to "the corpse" or "the body".
A "vault" is a sturdy enclosure for the casket, made of cement or other durable material. (Vault being a word which we Limeys would associate with a burial chamber.)