Facing the "King of Terrors": Death and Society in an American Community, 1750-1990 (original) (raw)

Abstract

Facing the "King of Terrors" : death and society in an American community / Robert V. Wells. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.). isbn 0-521-63319-2 (hbk.) 1. Death-Social aspects-New York (State)-Schenectady-History. 2. Mortality-Social aspects-New York (State)-Schenectady-History. 3. Funeral rites and ceremonies-New York (State)-Schenectady-History. 4. Mourning customs-New York (State)-Schenectady-History. 5. Schenectady (N.Y.)-Social life and customs. I. Title. hq1073.u62s348 2000 306.9′09747′44-dc21 99-21118 isbn 0 521 63319 2 hardback Contents List of Illustrations page vii List of Tables ix List of Abbreviations x Preface xi

Key takeaways

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  1. This study examines death's cultural significance in Schenectady from 1750 to 1990.
  2. Lifton's five modes of symbolizing immortality inform the analysis of death practices.
  3. Death in Schenectady reflects broader Western trends, including medicalization and privatization.
  4. Changes in mourning customs and funerary practices indicate shifts in societal attitudes towards death.
  5. The research utilizes diverse sources to explore the interconnectedness of death and culture.

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References (35)

  1. The death register is located in the Schenectady City History Center.
  2. Evening Star, August 20, 1902, p. 5.
  3. See, for example, Richard Huntington and Peter Metcalf, Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (Cambridge University Press, 1979); John Bowker, The Meanings of Death (Cambridge University Press, 1991); and Hiroshi Obayashi, ed., Death and Afterlife: Perspectives of World Religions (Westport, Greenwood Press, 1992).
  4. For some of the most interesting recent work, see James J. Ferrell, Inventing the Amer- ican Way of Death, 1830-1920 (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1980);
  5. Allan I. Ludwig, Graven Images: New England Stonecarving and Its Symbols, 1650-1815 (Middletown, Ct., Wesleyan University Press, 1966);
  6. Richard E. Meyer, ed., Cemeter- ies and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture (Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press, 1989), and his edited volume, Ethnicity and the American Cemetery (Bowling Green, Popular Press, 1993);
  7. Samuel H. Preston and Michael R. Haines, Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991);
  8. David C. Sloane, The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991); and David E. Stannard, The Puritan Way of Death: A Study of Religion, Culture, and Social Change (New York, Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1977).
  9. The main outlines of the argument are in Robert J. Lifton, The Broken Connection: On Death and the Continuity of Life (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1979). For a more brief outline see Robert J. Lifton and Eric Olson, Living and Dying (New York, Praeger, 1974).
  10. Lifton, Broken Connection, 393.
  11. Robert J. Lifton, Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (New York, Random House, 1967), and The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York, Basic Books, 1986).
  12. Lifton, Broken Connection, 87.
  13. Robert J. Lifton, Shuichi Kato, and Michael R. Reich, Six Lives/Six Deaths: Portraits from Modern Japan (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1979). For a different per- spective on the interaction of culture and personal experience, see the special issue of Ethos on "Coping with Bereavement," 23 (Dec., 1995), edited by Karen J. Brison and Stephen C. Leavitt.
  14. Geoffrey Gorer, "The Pornography of Death," Encounter (October, 1955), reprinted in his Death, Grief, and Mourning (Garden City, Doubleday, 1965), 192-99.
  15. Philippe Ariès, Western Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to the Present, trans. Patricia Ranum (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974) is a short summary of his argument. For a longer version, see Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. by Helen Weaver (New York, Knopf, 1981). Much of his evidence comes from visual materials, which he has presented in Images of Death and Man, trans. by Janet Lloyd (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1985).
  16. Fredrick S. Paxton argues in Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Modern Europe (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1990) that Christian death ritual emerged about a.d. 900.
  17. Caroline W. Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1995) suggests that ideas about death were not so stable and monolithic as Ariès describes, and that when resurrection occurred and what it entailed were subjects of considerable debate.
  18. Ariès, Western Attitudes, 85.
  19. Stannard, Puritan Way of Death, 191.
  20. Ibid., 193.
  21. Ibid., 196.
  22. James A. Hijiya, "American Gravestones and Attitudes toward Death: A Brief History," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 127 (1983), 339-63. Sloane, Last Great Necessity, 4-5, divides cemetery building into eight major styles, but offers no interpretation of the changes such as Hijiya's.
  23. Ibid., 348.
  24. Ibid., 354.
  25. Ibid., 360.
  26. Ferrell, American Way of Death.
  27. Ibid., 4-5.
  28. Ibid., 217.
  29. Ibid., 221.
  30. Ibid.
  31. Ibid.
  32. Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York, Knopf, 1977), Chap- ter 6, "The Domestication of Death"; Mary P. Ryan, The Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1981), 87-88, 219-22.
  33. Douglas, Feminization, 226.
  34. Ryan, Middle Class, 88.
  35. Thomas E. Burke, Jr., Mohawk Frontier: The Dutch Community of Schenectady, New York, 1661-1710 (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1991).

FAQs

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What patterns of death were prevalent in Schenectady between 1750 and 1990?add

The study reveals that one-third of deaths recorded from 1902 to 1907 were children under age five, indicating high infant mortality rates.

How did immigration impact attitudes towards death in Schenectady?add

Immigrant families like the Ebingers faced acute tragedies linked to displacement and health crises, revealing personal impacts of cultural and environmental factors on death.

What role did women play in shaping death rituals and attitudes?add

Women leveraged sentimental literature and organized deathbed scenes, significantly redefining societal responses and mourning practices in the 19th century.

What were the shifts in grave marker styles and their significance?add

Grave markers transitioned from prospective messages emphasizing afterlife preparation to retrospective ones focusing on individual lives, echoing broader cultural shifts by 1800.

How did medicalization affect perceptions of death in the 20th century?add

The late 19th and 20th centuries saw a 'forbidden death' mentality emerge as death became hospital-centered and increasingly detached from familial contexts.