W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 1996 "Preserving their form and features": The role of coffins in the American understanding of death, 1607-1870 Brent Warren Tharp College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Tharp, Brent Warren, ""Preserving their form and features": The role of coffins in the American understanding of death, 1607-1870" (1996). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623890. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-mene-k112 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. 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Further Further reproduction reproduction prohibited prohibited without permission. without permission. "PRESERVING THEIR FORM AND FEATURES": The Role of Coffins in the American Understanding of Death, 1607-1870 A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Program in American Studies The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Brent Warren Tharp 1996 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9720978 Copyright 1997 by Tharp, Brent Warren All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9720978 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVAL SHEET This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 3 ^ JtUj .7k~v 3 Brent W. Tharp J Approved, August 19,1996 /? ( § ^ 1 f a ^ jarbara Carson Grev Gundaker Bruce McConachie Alan Wallach ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To Kelly Your support, patience, and understanding, which have encouraged and inspired me through this process, are surpassed only by my love for you. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS -ace ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v LIST OF GRAPHS vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vi i ABSTRACT viii INTRODUCTION 2 CHAPTER I. The Christian Origins of Corfins and Their Transfer to America 30 CHAPTER II. The Coffin in America 1730-1820: Gentility's Influence Established and Challenged 70 CHAPTER III. The Coffin in America 1790-1370: The Development of Respectability 113 CHAPTER IV. Respectability and the Commerce of Death: Undertakers, Cemeteries, and the Rise of Modernity 153 CHAPTER V. The Metallic Burial Case 1850-1870: American Respectability and Modernity 177 APPENDICES 226 BIBLIOGRAPHY 243 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Barbara Carson, Bruce McConachie, Gray Gundaker, and Alan Wallach for their time and generous assistance. Thanks also go to my family, the Tharps and the Parsons, for encouragement and support. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF GRAPHS Graph Page 1. Advertisements for Coffin Furniture in The Pennsylvania Gazette 1738-1783 85 2. Images of Coffins Published in Colonial America 1746-1775 101 3. Average Price of Coffins Made John L. Beard and T.J. Atkins & Son 142 4. Highest and Lowest Prices Charged T.J. Atkins & Son 167 5. Number of Coffins Sold Unidentified Undertaker, Oshkosh, WI 193 6. Percentage of Coffin Income from Metallic Burial Cases, Unidentified Undertaker, Oshkosh, WI 194 vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration Page 1. Batesville Casket Company Advertisement 4 2. Lord Botetourt's Coffin Plate, 1770 72 3. Remains of Nathaniel Harrison's Coffin, 1727 82 4. Sketch of Tack Design, Nathaniel Harrison's Coffin, 1727 83 5. Metamorphosis Book, 1780 96 6. Woodcut from Theft and Murder; A Poem on the Execution of Levi Ames... 106 7. Woodcut from An Exhortation to Young and Old to be Cautious of Small Crimes... 107 8. Coffin Illustration from An Exhortation to Young and Old to be Cautious of Small Crimes... 108 9. Woodcut from Philadelphia den 19ten May 1766... 111 10. Undertaker Advertisements, 1857 162 11. Coffin Patented by Frederick Skiff, 1847 187 12. Coffin Patented by Almond D. Fisk, 1848 189 13. Flat Top Case Coffin, Cincinnati Coffin Company, 187 6 195 14. Coffin Ordering Instructions, Cincinnati Coffin Company, 1876 196 15. Bronzed Metallic Burial Case 198 16. The Covered Metallic Burial Case 200 17. Crane's Patent Metallic Burial Casket 203 18. Advertisement From Receipt of Edward Arnold 219 vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This dissertation is a study of the American coffin, its origins, forms, and meanings especially with regard to its role in the integration of death in American society before 1870. Coffins have generally been ignored by material culture studies primarily because of our society's cultural uneasiness with the topic of death. Current American funeral and burial practices seem bizarre and ahistorical and have often been characterized as the result of twentieth-century commercial greed. However, coffins have a long history as important artifacts which American society has used to legitimize death in subtly different ways for generations. This study examines the first uses of coffins in seventeenth-century America and follows their development up to the consolidation of the field of funeral directing and the mass production of coffins in the years after the Civil War. This dissertation will investigate the role of coffins as they developed through the interaction of three major cultural systems, Christianity, gentility, and modernity. Each had an influence on the form and meaning of coffins and on each other. The origins of coffins lie in the system of Christianity and its emphasis on the resurrection of the body. Although Christianity would continue to influence attitudes toward death, burial practices and coffin use underwent a process of secularization. This allowed other systems, primarily gentility, to incorporate coffins and burial. Within the cultural system of gentility, coffins first served as an object of status for the gentry, but their role changed as the process of commercialization made decorated coffins more available to a greater number of Americans, and gentility was modified into respectability. Eventually the system of modernity incorporated coffin use, as mass marketing and production combined with technological innovations. This was exemplified by the introduction of the metallic burial case. By tracing the developments in coffins and burial and their role in cultural systems, we may better understand how American society was able to continually legitimize the institution of death and create a common understanding of experience. viii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life." — Thomas Mann, The Macric Mountain Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "PRESERVING THEIR FORM AND FEATURES": The Role of Coffins in the