Funeral Director

The funeral director is the professional in charge of the body handling and the organization of funerals. The tasks of the funeral director include the removal and care of the body, the dressing and placement of the body in the coffin, the supervising of the funeral ceremony, and the transportation of the body. This role involves coordinating a network of religious, medical, and community actors.

The history of the profession is characterized by a process of professionalization and commercialization, with funeral directors seeking to attract clients by devising and offering an ever wider range of services. As well as taking care of the preparation of the body of the deceased and arranging the funeral ritual, funeral directors now provide other kinds of support, not only to the family of the deceased (e.g., bereavement counseling) but also to the future deceased (e.g., through funeral planning), for those who wish to finance and arrange their own funeral in advance.

History

The origins of the modern funeral director can be traced back to the libitinarius in ancient Rome. He performed a number of functions, including embalming, providing professional mourners and mourning clothes, and organizing the funeral procession. Although the influence of these practices can be observed in the practices of 20th-century funeral directors in Western societies (particularly regarding the pomp and ceremony), undertaking as a profession goes back no further than the 19th century. Previously handling the dead was not a matter for specialists. When someone died, various members of the community would be mobilized: The livery stable keeper would provide the hearse and the funeral carriages, the local carpenter or the cabinetmaker would make the coffin, and the sexton would toll the church bell and dig the grave. Immediate and extended family, as well as neighbors of the deceased, would undertake certain tasks such as washing and dressing of the body, ordering the coffin, and finally carrying the coffin from the home of the deceased to the church and then, from there, to the cemetery.

Over time, businesses specializing in providing funeral services and supplies began to appear. The funeral director became no longer a mere supplier of equipment—coffins, hearse, pallbearers—but rather a professional playing a useful role in society, an entrepreneur who offered, for a charge, a wide range of services: washing and dressing of the deceased, casketing, transportation of the coffin, as well as provision of all the paraphernalia of mourning. The increasing control of funeral directors was a consequence of both the weakening of community ties and the decline in the influence of the Church, unable to maintain its authority over every aspect of the funeral rites. Moreover, the shifting of the location of the funeral to specialized premises further increased the funeral director's control over proceedings. As homes got smaller, the laying out of the body in the house of the deceased became impractical and more commonly took place in the funeral home, where there was sufficient room for families to congregate. Likewise, embalming, developed in the United States during the Civil War and involving increasingly sophisticated techniques and equipment, gradually moved from private homes to adapted funeral homes.

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