There were important societal level changes beginning in the late 1800s through the early 1900s that moved death away from the daily lives of non-Indigenous North Americans, influencing how we view death and deal with the dead (Lundgren & Houseman, 2010).
Key Historical Changes in How We Encounter Death
Four major developments transformed how Western societies experienced death and dying:
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Increased Life Expectancy
Advances in sanitation, nutrition, and public health dramatically extended the average lifespan (Lundgren & Houseman, 2010; Roser et al., 2015). -
Medical Advances and the Rise of Hospitals
Expanding medical knowledge, new technologies, and professional training reshaped care for the sick.
Examples include improved understanding of viruses such as polio, the development of vaccines and antibiotics, and the establishment of hospitals as central sites of treatment (DenHoed, 2016; Lundgren & Houseman, 2010). -
Professionalization of the Funeral Industry
Care for the dead shifted from families and communities to trained professionals, creating a commercialized funeral industry (Lundgren & Houseman, 2010). -
Transformation of Burial Practices
Burial sites moved from crowded urban churchyards to spacious, landscaped cemeteries designed as peaceful, park-like settings (Lundgren & Houseman, 2010; Ted-Ed, 2018).
In the early 1800s, life expectancy in North America was around 35 years of age (Roser et al., 2019). As public health improvements (e.g., understandings of and practices in sanitation; better nutrition, protection of drinking water; access to medicines such as vaccines, etc.) evolved, and medicine and medical advancements became focused on preventing death (Barkin & Gentles, 1990; Lundgren & Houseman, 2010), life expectancy increased to 50 years by 1900 and has steadily increased since then (except during the Spanish Flu pandemic – see Chapter on Plagues & Pandemics) (Barkin & Gentles, 1990; Roser et al., 2019; Whitmore et al., 2016).
By the end of the 19th century, cemeteries began to be moved outside of urban areas to allow for more space for the dead (Ted-Ed, 2018). The funeral industry also began the process of professionalization – moving from the undertaker who built caskets, dug graves, and transported bodies to graves, to the mortician who offered full funeral package services outside of the home, including the increasingly popular practice of preserving bodies through embalmment (Walsh, 2017).
With the assistance of medicine and the funeral industry, death was literally cleansed from people’s lives. Most of the dying and death related practices that had taken place after the death of a loved one moved behind closed doors (Frontline PBS, 2015). Even today, if we are at the bedside of a loved one at moment of death, shortly thereafter they are taken away. The next time we might see their body, if at all, is the funeral service and only if there is an open casket.
These key societal changes, including increased life expectancy, death prevention medicine, distancing from cemeteries and funeral practices, has led to physical and social distancing from death. Such distancing help account for a rising fear of death and the death avoidance practices common today (See Chapter on Talking About Death).
