Sociology

Chadwick's report

1840's report on unsanitary conditions in London created by intramural burials, the high cost of funerals and the 1st use of the death certificate.

Religion

A culturally entrenched pattern of behavior made up of: 1) sacred beliefs, 2) emotional feelings accompanying the beliefs, and 3) overt conduct presumably implementing the beliefs and feelings.

Immediate burial

A disposition of human remains by burial without formal viewing, visitation, or ceremony with the body present, except for a graveside service.

Direct disposition

A disposition of human remains, without formal viewing, visitation, or ceremony with the body present.

Subculture

A division, or smaller identifiable unit of a culture, connected to that culture by common traits, having unique traits to itself.

Traditional Funeral Rite

A funeral rite that follows a prescribed ritual or ceremony which may be dictated either by religious belief or social custom.

Adaptive Funeral Rite

A funeral rite that is adjusted to the needs and wants of those directly involved; one which has been altered to suit the trends of the times.

Humanistic Funeral Rite

A funeral rite that is in essence devoid of religious connotation.

Non-tradiational Funeral Rite

A funeral rite which deviates from the normal or prescribed circumstances of established custom.

Primitive Funeral Rite

A funeral rite which may be construed as being identifiable with a pre-literate society.

Society

A group of persons forming a single community with some interests in common.

Ritual

A kind of instrumental action; but also expressional - that is, it is charged with symbolic content expressing among other things, the attitudes of the participants and possible onlookers (passive participants) who may be regarded as co-beneficiaries.

Effigy

A life-sized, waxen recreation (dummy) of the deceased; often used at state funerals because the body of the deceased should be present for the funeral, but could not be preserved for that length of time

Laws

A must-behavior not necessarily a basic or important pattern of a people (related to death) but one which is enforced by those governing.

Funeralization

A process involving all activities associated with final disposition.

Class

A social grouping in which members possess roughly equivalent culturally valued attributes.

Funeral trolley car

A specially designed train car run on a citys trolley line to transport casket & mourners to cemeteries on the outskirts of the city.

Inviter to funerals

A specialty connected with funerals in colonial America; called personally upon those expected to attend funerals; often a municipal appointment.

American Board of Funeral Service Education

Agency/organization with responsibility to accredit colleges and programs of mortuary science/funeral service education

Gravity injector

Apparatus used to inject arterial fluid during the vascular (arterial) phase of the embalming process; relies on gravity to create the pressure required to deliver the fluid (0.43 pounds of pressure per foot of elevation)

Layers of the dead

Became an occupational specialty in many larger US cities by the end of the 18th C.; predecessor to the undertaker.

Folkways

Behaviors which are construed as somewhat less compulsive than mores of the same society, and do not call for a strong reaction from the society if violated.

Bloodletting

Belief or practice of draining a quantity of blood to cure illness or disease.

Extramural burial

Burial outside the walls of the city; concept introduced during the ancient Roman times.

Conference of Funeral Service Examining Board

Organization of licensing agencies in North America; responsible for the national licensing exam known as the National Board Exam; established in St. Louis in 1904.

Casket Manufacturers Association

Organization of the casket manufacturers intended to facilitate sharing of information (now known as the Casket and Funeral Supply Association)

Catacombs

Originated in ancient Rome as excavated cemeteries cut out of soft rock for the tombs of wealthy Christians; later became a place for religious rites to avoid persecution

Burial vault

Outer enclosure for caskets placed in the grave; originally intended to prevent grave robbery

Fisk metallic coffin

Patented in 1848 as form-fitting, airtight metallic coffin designed to improve ability to preserve the body; also had a glass plate to allow for viewing of the face.

Demographic

Pertaining to demography; the science of vital statistics, or of births, deaths, marriages, etc. of populations.

Cooling board

Portable table on which the body was placed while the corpse cooler was in use; later became the embalming table when embalming was done in the home of the deceased.

Funeral undertaker

Provided services of organizing and facilitating funeral details as an occupation; aka undertaker, different from furnishing undertaker.

Furnishing undertaker

Provided supplies and merchandise (i.e. door badges, carriages, etc.) to funeral undertakers who were dealing directly with the public. Furnishing undertakers filled the role of middle man.

Catafalque

Raised platform (with or without a canopy) used for a body to lie in state.

Burial in Woolen Act of 1666

Required that woolen cloth be substituted for linen in the shroud and lining of the coffin; was an attempt to shift the use of imported linen to the expanding paper industry of England and provide customers for the wool industry. Heavy fines were assessed for violation; not repealed until 1814.

Ceremony

Similar to ritual but it may, or may not, have symbolic content.

Mobility

The state of being mobile; specifically in sociology, the ability to move from place to place readily, or to move from class to class, either upward or downward.

Sociology

The study of social groups; their internal forms or modes of organization, the processes that tend to maintain or change these forms of organizations, and the relations between groups.

Neo-localism

The tendency of off-spring to move away from the area in which they were born.

Animistic view

Early Roman view of the afterlife which emphasizes the soul as the vital principle. The soul at death hovered around the place of burial and required constant attention of the descendants to be happy. Neglect would bring evil upon them.

Anubis

Egyptian god of embalming said to be of human form with the head of a jackal.

Crier

English custom of Middle Ages which lasted until 19th C.; person who walked the street calling out the name of the deceased and asking people to pray for the soul of the departed.

Bier

Forerunner of today's hearse; a hand stretcher on which the uncoffined body was carried to the grave.

Cremation Association of North America

Founded in 1913, CANA is an international organization of cemeterians, cremationists, funeral directors, industry suppliers and consultants. CANA was originally formed to promote cremation as a modern, safe and hygienic way of dealing with a dead human body.

Casket

From the French term casse meaning 'jewel box' or container for something valuable; came into dominant use in patent literature for burial receptacles in 1890's in America.

Coffin

From the Greek word kofinos; utilitarian container designed to hold human remains, often anthropoidal in shape.

Cortege

Funeral procession.

Memorial Service

Funeral rites with the body not present.

Burial case

Generic term used in America to designate all burial receptacles as new variations of the coffin were being offered

Ethnocentrism

The emotional attitude that one's own race, nation, group, or culture is superior to all others.

Symbol

Anything to which socially created meaning is given.

Contemporary

Living or happening in the same period.

Designator

Master of ceremonies and director of the ancient Roman funeral procession

Single Parent Family

Membership consists of one adult, either male or female, and his/her children.

Blended Family

Membership consists of one male and one female and the children from their previous marriages and may include children from the present marriage.

Extended (Joint) Family

Membership within household includes father and mother, all their children (except married daughters), their son's wives and children (except married daughters).

Nuclear Family

Membership within household includes one man, one woman, and their children, if any.

Cremation

Method of disposing of the dead body via fire; first attributed to the ancient Greeks.

Hand pump

Method to apply a continuous flow of embalming solution via manual manipulation of a handheld mechanism.

Taboos

Must-behavior which dictates the individual must abstain from certain acts dealing with death.

Mores

Must-behavior; the basic and important patterns of ideas and acts of a people as related to treatment of the dead which calls for a strong reaction from the society if violated.

Modern

Of, or characteristic of, the present or recent times; not ancient; often used to designate certain contemporary tendencies.

Funeral Rite

An all-inclusive term used to encompass all funeral and/or memorial services.

Social Function

An event which allows those who have something in common with each other to deal with one-another in regard to that which they share.

Funeral

An organized, flexible, purposeful, group centered, time-limited response to death which reflects reverence, dignity, and respect.

Circle of necessity

Ancient Egyptian belief that the soul of the deceased would make a 3000 year journey and return to the body. Once reunited the whole man would live with the gods. This belief created the need for embalming.

Immediate Disposition

Any disposition of a human remains which is completely devoid of any form of funeral rite at the time of disposition.

Rite

Any event performed in a solemn and prescribed manner.

Social Stratification

Categorization of people by money, prestige, and power; a ranking of social status (position) in groups such as upper, middle, and lower class.

Rites of Passage

Ceremonies centering around transition in life from one status to another (ex: Baptism, marriage, and the funeral).

Jewish Funeral Directors of America (JFDA)

Chartered in 1928 to secure harmony in the profession among Jewish funeral directors and elevate the practice of the profession.

Culture

Consists of abstract patterns (the rules, ideas, beliefs shared by members of society) of and for living and dying, which are learned directly or indirectly.

Burial club

Created in 1800's London by the 'poor' people as a means to afford funerals; costs were shared by others via weekly collections; were the forerunners of industrial insurance.

Pre-Literate Society

Designating or of a culture developed before the invention of writing and, hence, leaving no written records.

Ethnic

Designating or of any of the basic divisions or groups of mankind, or distinguished by customs, characteristics, language, etc.

Anthropoid

Human shaped; some early coffins were described as anthropoidal shaped.

Elysian fields

In Greek mythology, the Greek version of heaven.

Funeral feast

In Middle Ages the wake also served as a feast to welcome the principal heir to his new estate. For the ancient Greeks, funeral feasts ended the fast of the bereaved.

Patriarchal

In marriage, the father rules the family, specifically in sociology, the patriarch, the father, and the ruler of the family or tribe; a man of great age and dignity; the oldest individual of a class or group.

Matriarchal

In marriage, the mother rules her family, specifically in sociology; a woman holding a position analogous to that of a patriarch.

Egalitarian

In marriage, to hold that both male and female have equal rights, duties, and governing power.

Neo-Local

In sociology, applied to an individual, family, or group which has relocated to an area other than the ancestral region.

Canopic jars

Jars made of alabaster, limestone, basalt, clay and other materials used by the early Egyptians to store viscera of the deceased.

Funeralis

Latin for torchlight procession; word 'funeral' is derived from this

Cultural Universal

Like abstract patterns of, and for living and dying, which are identifiable in all cultures.

Customs

Social behavior as dictated by the tradition of the people.

Industrialization

Specifically in sociology, the change from independent multi-talented, self-sufficient family units to employment of family members in jobs outside the unit, making them dependent on outside resources for their total needs.

Rules

Specified methods of procedure.

Urbanization

The change from rural to urban in character; to make like or characteristic of a city.

Bureaucratization

The creation of a system which govern through departments and subdivisions managed by sets of officials following an inflexible routine.

Family of Procreation

The family established by one's marriage and the production of children.

Family of Orientation

The family into which one is born.

Enculturation (Socialization)

The method by which the social values are internalized (learned).

Socialization (Enculturation)

The method by which the social values of the funeral rite are internalized (learned).

Hearse

Today, a vehicle specially designed to transport casketed remains; derived from French word, hearse; originally a stationary framework of wood to hold candles and decorations placed on the coffin; forerunner was a bier; hearse and bier were used interchangeably until mid 19th C.; aka funeral coach.

Drummers

Traveling salesmen who went from town to town selling their products. Early embalmers often obtained their products and training in this manner.

Corpse cooler

Type of ice chest placed over the torso the body in order to slow down the process of decomposition prior to the funeral. It was typically a responsibility of the undertaker to provide ice and change the ice when it melted.

Barber-surgeon

Were the sole agency permitted to embalm and perform anatomical dissections in the city of London; (approximately 1540-1745).