Funeral Industry
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October 7, 2013
Death Salon LA 2013: Better than Death Race 2000
Death Salon LA 2013 Los Angeles, CA (October 18 and 19, 2013)
Our good friends at the Order of the Good Death are putting on an enormous Death Fest next week in Los Angeles. Check it out if you can! And here’s some Death Race 2000 just for fun.
Death Salon LA 2013 Los Angeles, CA (October 18 and 19, 2013) Our good friends at the Order of the Good Death are putting on…
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June 5, 2012
Live Free or Die…in a Hand Crafted Benedictine Monk Casket Part II
Louisiana Monks Go to Court to Sell Their Caskets Robert Barnes, Washington Post (May 30, 2012) Not very long after God told some at St….
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June 25, 2011
Shade it Black
Earlier this week, NPR ran an interview with Jess Goodell, author of the new memoir Shade it Black: Death and After in Iraq. The new…
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May 22, 2011
The Value-added Tombstone
QR Codes Are Appearing on (Ready for This?) Tombstones Julio Ojeda-Zapata, TwinCities.com/Pioneer Press (May 20, 2011) What’s the next best thing to placing flowers on…
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March 20, 2011
The Bereaved Consumer’s Bill of Rights Act of 2011
We’ve seen some pretty nasty cemetery abuses in recent months, from Burr Oak to Arlington. Nancy in Texas tipped off the Death Reference Desk about…
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January 30, 2011
Webcasting Killed the Funeral Star
For the Funeral Too Distant, Mourners Gather on the Web Laura M. Holson, The New York Times (January 25, 2011) Webcast funerals reach more friends…
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December 10, 2010
Coffin Making: Now with Barcodes and Touch Screens
Bringing the Coffin Industry Back From the Dead
How barcodes and touch screens are resuscitating a casket factory
Ben Austen, The Atlantic (December 2010)Modern, industrial casket making is a manufacturing business like any other, but for the fact that most people never think about modern, industrial casket making. The above article in The Atlantic does an excellent job of capturing how American casket making has become a largely automated industry, similar to the auto business.
This article is also about changes to the American labor force but in a decidedly niche business. It turns out that the American casket industry is suffering from many of the same problems faced by manufacturers all across the country. You can read about many of those death and dead body industries in the Death + the Economy section.
Out of curiosity, I went to YouTube to look for casket/coffin making videos and found the following vintage 1970s film. The YouTube video is actually instructive because it shows how the casket industry used to manufacture caskets before the introduction of the automation technologies.
Bringing the Coffin Industry Back From the Dead How barcodes and touch screens are resuscitating a casket factory Ben Austen, The Atlantic (December 2010) Modern,…
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December 3, 2010
The Ultimate in Going Green: New Research into Postmortem Options with John Troyer
Crematorium to Keep Mourners Warm by Burning Bodies of Loved Ones The Daily Mail (January 08, 2008) Eco-Death Articles and Information Put Together by…
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November 18, 2010
Florida Elects Tea Party Funeral Director
Outspoken Fla. Democratic Rep. Grayson Unseated Mike Schneider and Bill Kaczor, The Washington Post (November 02, 2010) Buried deep in this Washington Post article on…
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October 8, 2010
Green Burial: A Review
Eco-friendly or “green” burial methods and practices are the hot topic in the funeral industry and mortuary sciences these days. Everywhere you turn, there is…
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September 12, 2010
It’s My Way or Highway (to Hell). Neither O.K.
Australia’s Catholic church bans pop songs at funerals Reuters, Melbourne. September 10, 2010 There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time…