| |
by Stephen Prothero
University of California Press
Copyright © 2001 All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-520-20816-1
Chapter One continued
Reading the Rite
There are many things to say about this pioneering cremation. The
first and most obvious is that its organizers were social reformers.
Their movement was an effort to improve society by substituting
for the pollution of burial the purity of cremation. More precisely,
early cremationists were just the sort of enlightened ladies and
gentlemen whom historians have seen as central to the tradition
of genteel reform. Colonel Olcott was a lawyer and Dr. LeMoyne a
physician. De Palm was a foreign-born baron and, if we are to believe
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, also a high-ranking Mason—"Grand
Cross Commander of the Sovereign Order of the Holy Sepulchre at
Jerusalem, Knight of St. John at Malta, Prince of the Roman Empire,
late Chamberlain to His Majesty the King of Bavaria." Soon
the movement would attract an even more impressive list of genteel
elites: capitalist William Waldorf Astor, temperance advocate Kate
Field, Harvard president Charles William Eliot, newspaper editor
Charles A. Dana, educator Elisabeth P. Peabody, philanthropist Andrew
Carnegie, abolitionist Cassius Clay, Senator Charles Sumner, Buddhist
sympathizer Moncure Conway, ethical culture leader Felix Adler,
Unitarian minister Jenkin Lloyd Jones, Episcopalian bishop Phillips
Brooks, and Transcendentalist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to name
only a few.[Note 43]
Cremation was to these reformers a method for cultivating individuals
and improving society. Not simply a way to make a better nation,
it was a way to make better citizens—by uplifting the vulgar
to refinement. Individuals who resisted cremation were, by this
logic, resisting both the betterment of society and the cultivation
of their own virtues. America's pioneering cremationists, like other
genteel reformers, were egalitarians insofar as they believed that
even the most lowly American was capable of beingraised up to a
higher level of culture and civilization. But each was also determined
to rank Americans on a continuum from unwashed to washed and thus
to preserve the time-honored distinction between uncultivated and
cultivated souls: the lowly who needed to be lifted up and those,
like themselves, who would do the heavy lifting. Such was the logic
of this under-studied aspect of the "refinement of America."[Note
44]
Early cremation reformers may have stood near the center of genteel
society, but they were largely religious outsiders, frequently aligning
themselves with alternatives to both mainline Protestantism and
traditional Catholicism. Later, cremation's popularizers would heed
the advice of editorial writers and begin to distance their cause
from religious dissent, but at least in its infancy cremation was
closely tied to unorthodox spirituality, including Spiritualism,
Theosophy, and Asian religions. Many leading cremationists were
eccentric in religion as well as temperament. LeMoyne was, according
to his friends, nearly as radical religiously as he was politically.
Olcott was a Spiritualist turned Theosophist well on his way to
becoming a Buddhist. De Palm was, in Olcott's words, "a Voltairean
with a gloss of Spiritualism," and, if we are to believe the
Tribune, a Rosicrucian and dabbler in "occult sciences"
to boot.[Note 45] The "pagan funeral" that Olcott had
conducted in May 1876 was as replete with references to Egyptian
religious traditions as it was lacking in references to Christianity.
And the De Palm cremation in December 1876 was attended, as the
Times lamented, by nothing that resembled traditional Christian
funerary rites.
Witnesses to De Palm's cremation clearly associated the practice
with the "heathen," but exactly which "heathen"
isn't clear. Both defenders and detractors wrote repeatedly about
cremation as an Asian import, and reinforcing that view were a variety
of articles about cremation in Japan and India published in the
popular press. Most reports echoed Olcott in describing the receptacle
used for the baron's ashes as a "Hindoo cremation urn. . .
decorated with Hindoo characters and devices," but one Times
reporter indicated that the urn was designed "after the manner
practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans." This confusion
is telling, since America's early cremationists linked cremation
with what they saw as the great civilizations of Greece, Rome, and
India, and Americans in general were not yet aware of the differences
among the traditions they lumped together as "heathenism."[Note
46]
Though organizers linked the De Palm cremation with the antique
glories of Greco-Roman civilization and the ancient grandeur of
India, cremation was a peculiar revival. Early cremationists may
have been reviving an ancient rite, but they were modernists to
the core. As such, they were determined to improve on ancient precedents,
to adapt them to modern, scientific contingencies, and thus to evolve
out of a crude, ancient ritual a new and improved practice that
was as scientific as it was modern. By drawing a sharp distinction
between ancient and modern cremation, American cremationists were
able to be true to both their colonial and their anticolonial impulses.
Their cosmopolitanism led them to laud India as a cradle of cremation
(and to flatter themselves for exhibiting religious and cultural
tolerance). But their ethnocentrism led them to view ancient cremation
(even as it was practiced at the time in India or among Native Americans)
as badly in need of modern improvements. This distinction between
ancient and modern cremation was not lost on the folks at Frank
Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, who published illustrations accompanying
a front-page story on cremation that contrasted "The Ancient
Grecian Method" of cremation with the high-tech modern Western
one (and noted the superiority of the latter along the way). The
same distinction was underscored repeatedly by Olcott, who despite
his attraction to the religions of India took pride in the fact
that the baron's cremation represented a vast improvement over traditional
Hindu practices. Because the body was disposed of in a closed furnace
instead of an open pyre, Olcott wrote, "there could be none
of that horror of roasting human flesh and bursting entrails which
makes one shudder at an open-air pyre-burning.. . . There was none
of that unpleasant odour that sometimes sickens one who drives past
an Indian burning-ghat."[Note 47]
In part because of the association of cremation with modernity,
genteel reform, and unorthodox and Asian religions, the efforts
of America's nineteenth-century cremationists did little in the
years immediately following the De Palm cremation to sway ungenteel
Americans, who like the citizens of Washington continued to overwhelmingly
prefer burial, largely on religious grounds. When they were not
either ridiculing or ignoring the rite, these traditionalists argued
that cremation was a heathen, pagan, and therefore anti-Christian
practice: it overturned nearly 2,000 years of the Christian custom
of burial, it demonstrated a lack of respect for the sanctity of
the body (which was the temple of the Holy Ghost), and it flew in
the face of the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body.
This verdict notwithstanding, early cremationists were as a group
neither areligious nor inattentive to ritual. Neither De Palm's
May funeral nor his December cremation were overtly Christian. But
neither was secular either. Each was a creole rite that creatively
combined Christian and non-Christian, Eastern and Western elements.
Virtually every step in each process, moreover, was endowed with
spiritual and ritual significance. The baron's Masonic Temple funeral
was, no doubt, post-Christian, but it aimed to "illustrate
the Eastern notions of death and immortality" via hymns, creeds,
prayers, and a myriad of religious symbols.[Note 48] No cremationist
involved in the events surrounding the cremation of Baron De Palm
believed that his corpse was simply profane material to be dispensed
with this way or that. All, in fact, were convinced that there was
a right and a wrong way to perform the new cremation rites they
were in the process of inventing. De Palm's death rites, in short,
demonstrated dechristianization without secularization. What they
rejected was not religion per se but traditional Christianity.[Note
49]
Ritual studies expert Catherine Bell has contended that to act
ritually is to act in ways that distinguish what you are doing from
more ordinary activities. Rituals do not need to be formal or repetitive.
In fact, they can be informal and improvised. But they need to distinguish
themselves from more mundane practices. Jonathan Z. Smith has made
much the same point: "Ritual is, above all, an assertion of
difference." From this perspective, Olcott and his charges
were clearly acting ritually. The same Times reporter who lamented
that "there were no religious services. . . not one iota of
ceremony" at the De Palm cremation also reported that Olcott
and his fellow cremationists evinced "all proper respect for
the dead," that the corpse was "lovingly showered"
with flowers and evergreens "as an emblem of immortality,"
that the flames of the burning evergreen formed "a crown of
glory for the dead man," and that some witnesses saw the gradual
uplifting of the left hand and the pointing upward of three of its
fingers as a miraculous message of sorts. The reporter (who compared
the rite with "the fiery ordeal through which Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego passed" in the Hebrew Bible) also noted that officiants
preoccupied themselves with all sorts of fine details that together
served to distinguish the rite they were constructing from more
commonplace activities. They emptied the corpse of fluids in order
to prevent an unseemly explosion, wrapped it in a pure white shroud,
draped it in an alum-soaked sheet in an effort to prevent any display
of nakedness, and dressed it with incense. After some debate, they
purposefully placed the body into the furnace head-first. They took
pains to take the baron out of his coffin prior to the cremation
in order to avoid mixing his ashes with foreign remains (and thus
confusing sacred relics with profane fuel). They acted, in short,
like priests conducting a solemn ritual. Yes, they were promoting
a sanitary technology, but they were also performing a purification
rite. It would not have been the least bit out of character if at
the end of this rite Olcott and his coofficiants had prayed, as
one newsman did: "peace to his ashes."[Note 50]
Cremation after De Palm
The De Palm cremation spread the good news of cremation, but likely
set the cremation movement back rather than propelling it forward.
Still, in the years that followed that landmark event a slow but
steady stream of the dead lined up to follow him into the fire.
On July 31, 1877, Dr. Charles F. Winslow, formerly of Boston, Massachusetts,
became the second person to be cremated in modern America when his
corpse was reduced to ashes in a furnace in Salt Lake City, Utah.[Note
51] A few months later, in November 1877, Julius Kircher, a German-American
Lutheran, caused a stir in New York City when, after arguing with
his Jewish wife about whether their dead eight-day-old son should
be interred in a Lutheran or a Jewish cemetery, he cremated the
infant in a furnace in his paint factory.[Note 52] On February 15,
1878, Mrs. Benjamin Pitman of Cincinnati became the first woman
to be cremated in modern America and the second person to make use
of the facilities at Dr. LeMoyne's crematory.[Note 53] On October
16, 1879, Dr. LeMoyne himself was cremated.[Note 54] Each of these
death rites followed to a remarkable extent the precedent of the
Baron De Palm.
Like De Palm, Dr. Winslow was a well-traveled and European-educated
religious eccentric who was cremated amid religious conservatives
(in Winslow's case, Mormons). But Winslow was no secularist. He
believed that "what of him was immaterial. . . returned unto
the God who gave it." Like LeMoyne, he was a physician who
was attracted to cremation because of unpleasant encounters with
exhumed human remains. And his cremation, too, stirred controversy;
nearly 1,000 people were said to have witnessed his fiery end. Like
De Palm, he was embalmed and wrapped in a white linen sheet. Flowers
and evergreens adorned his body. And he was carried lovingly and
solemnly by pallbearers to the furnace door. Although "no prayer
was uttered, no sermon preached, no funeral anthem sung," organizers
went to great lengths to assure the purity of his ashes. After iron
chips from the apparatus flaked off into the doctor's remains, they
were removed one by one before the remains were inurned, shipped
to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and buried
alongside his wife's grave—the first cremated remains known
to have been interred in Massachusetts. Predictably, editors at
the Salt Lake City Daily Tribune responded to Winslow's rite by
denouncing cremation as a "cold science" and waxing nostalgic
about the heartwarming practice of cemetery visitation.[Note 55]
Mrs. Benjamin Pitman was a professional woman renowned in the field
of shorthand. A well-educated but "somewhat eccentric"
ex-Swedenborgian who belonged to "the school of advanced thinkers,"
she was "a woman of more than ordinary refinement" who
adhered not to secularism but to the "creed of the beautiful."
Constitutionally optimistic, Mrs. Pitman ran a cheerful home where
"there was never a thought of gloom." Although only an
occasional churchgoer, she "felt confident," according
to her husband, "of a life beyond the grave" and, as a
result, believed that death should be greeted with gaiety, not sorrow.
Her husband apparently agreed not only with Mrs. Pitman's belief
in the soul's immortality but also with her scorn for funerary extravagances.
In a clear breach of Victorian mourning codes, he refused to allow
the customary black crape of death to mark his home's door. Like
the De Palm incineration reporters, most newsmen covering Mrs. Pitman's
cremation complained thatthe ritual was scandalously underdone.
Under the headline "An Unceremonious Rite," a Times reporter
said the task was performed "heartlessly"—"there
were no religious exercises whatever." "Not a prayer was
uttered; not a sigh was heard," the reporter lamented, "not
a tear-drop moistened the winding-sheet of the woman who for thirty
years had been the beloved wife of Mr. Ben Pitman." These conclusions
were not entirely unsubstantiated; Mrs. Pitman's will had directed
her survivors that there were to be "no religious observations
of any kind." However, the reporter's own writing contains
ample evidence of the violation of those directions. Mrs. Pitman's
body had been displayed at her Cincinnati home in a beautiful cherry
and mahogany casket—an elegant example, custom-carved with
the monogram "P" at the foot and a large cross at the
head. On the cross sat a wreath of fresh flowers, and the catafalque
supporting the coffin was dressed in light blue silk. At an informal
service at her home, an address was read and a poem recited. For
the trip to the LeMoyne crematory the coffin was draped with black
cloth. The corpse was displayed in the crematory's reception room,
where observers noted that the pure white satin interior of the
coffin perfectly matched the purity of her white satin dress. At
the crematory Mrs. Pitman was eulogized, and an original poem was
read in lieu of a prayer. The body was taken out of the coffin,
wrapped in a white, alum-soaked shroud, covered with flowers, and
placed on the catafalque. Attendants then committed the corpse,
head-first once again, to the furnace. Later, Mr. Pitman was said
to be considering strewing the ashes around the base of Mrs. Pitman's
favorite rose bush, "that the blooming and fragrant rose may
bring brightly before [her husband's] mind the memory of his loved
and faithful wife." In this way, Pitman had added, this believer
in the "creed of the beautiful" might be born again as
a rose.[Note 56]
Dr. LeMoyne's cremation was more high church. Although painted in
the press as a secularist, LeMoyne remained a Christian his whole
life. He endowed two chairs at Washington and Jefferson College,
an evangelical Protestant school. He said the cremation treatise
he drafted just before his death was written "from a Christian
stand-point." It included references to "the great Creator"
and called Jesus "Savior" and the Bible "the revealed
will of God." At a private funeral service at his home, attended
by two Protestant ministers, scripture passages were read and a
prayer offered. And at the crematory a benediction was recited.
Like Mrs. Pitman, LeMoyne reportedly instructed his family to scatter
his ashes in a rose bed, "so that the queen of flowers might
seek sustenance in his cinerary remains and scent the air with her
message of beauty and fragrance." Once again, reporters took
offense. Echoing the Tribune's complaint that the De Palm cremation
had degenerated into "a charlatan advertisement of a heathen
society," the Philadelphia Inquirer concluded that "the
great difficulty [with] this reform. . . has been the impracticable
character of those persons who have been foremost in urging its
adoption.. . . Then the theory of cremation had the misfortune of
being taken up by a body of mystics who rejoiced in the learned
title of Theosophists, and in whom every vestige of common sense
was obliterated.. . . They were the very last class of men and women
who should have been picked out to introduce a reform of any kind
among a sober and intelligent people, and more especially a reform
which, to most minds, seems barbarous and inhuman.[Note 57]
Newspapermen at the Tribune and the Inquirer mistook these pioneers
as irreligious and unceremonious because they wrongly equated mainline
Protestantism with religion, and traditional rituals with ritualizing
itself. Anthropologist Mary Douglas has argued that societies in
which social order is emphasized and pressure on the individual
to conform to social norms is high tend to be ritualistic. Their
rituals, moreover, tend toward the formal. One classic example of
this type of society, which Douglas terms "high grid, high
group," was Victorian America. In the United States in the
1870s, non-Christians were often denounced as heathens, and rebels
against fixed and formal rites were seen not as advocates of new
rituals but as opponents of ritualization itself. It should not
be surprising, therefore, that eyewitnesses judged early American
cremations as unceremonious and sacrilegious. But rather than taking
them at their word, we should interpret their judgments as evidence
of a historic shift in American ritualization. The Gilded Age is
now widely recognized by historians of American religion as an era
that, by bringing Buddhism and Hinduism to the United States, nudged
the country away from its Protestant past toward a new era of religious
pluralism. But it was also an age in which the country began to
step, however haltingly, away from ritual formalism and extravagance
toward a new era of ritual improvisation and simplicity. At the
time, critics dismissed the idiosyncratic rituals invented by the
cremationists as unceremonious and areligious. More neutral observers
will discern, however, that they were neither. Surely the cremations
of De Palm, Pitman, Winslow, and LeMoyne strayed from the standard
ritual formula of Gilded Age Americans. While the unwritten rules
of ritual propriety dictated a reverence for tradition, those rites
celebrated innovation. But however improvised and personalized,
they were rites nonetheless. The careful observer will see in them
neither an end of religion nor an end of ritual, but a desire for
new wine and new wineskins. In the events of December 6, 1876, and
beyond we see evidence for a new diversity in American religion.
We also glimpse the beginnings of a revolution in American ritual
life that would come to fruition in the creative cremation rites
of the 1960s through 1990s. [Note 58]
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Coverage Main Page
Chapter 1 Notes
[Note 1] Sir Henry Thompson, "Cremation: Treatment of the
Body after Death," Contemporary Review 23.2 (January 1874)
319-28. See also P. H. Holland's critical response, "Burial
or Cremation?" Contemporary Review 23.3 (February 1874) 477-84;
and Thompson's rejoinder, "Cremation: A Reply to Critics and
an Exposition of the Process," Contemporary Review 23.4 (March
1874) 553-71.
[Note 2] New York World, quoted in "The Carpers' Club,"
Daily Graphic (May 2, 1874) 474; "Cremation: Proposed Incorporation
of the New Society," Times (April 25, 1874) 2; "Cremation,"
Philadelphia Medical Times (April 25, 1874) 473; "Editor's
Easy Chair," Harper's New Monthly Magazine 49.290 (July 1874)
283; Jacob Wyce Horher, "Cremation," (M. D. thesis, University
of Pennsylvania, 1875) 18, 21. The patent is number 7,599 (July
28, 1874). The World spoke kindly of cremation in editorials on
March 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29, 1874. The results of the doctors' poll
appear in J. F. A. Adams, Cremation and Burial: An Examination of
their Relative Advantages (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1875). The
bibliography is "Cremation as a Mode of Interment, and Related
Subjects," Boston Public Library Bulletins 2.30 (July 1874)
268. These are by no means the only texts from 1874. See, e.g.,
George Bayles, "Disposal of the Dead," Sanitarian 2.3
(June 1874) 97-105; Fannie Roper Feudge, "Burning and Burying
in the East," Lippincott's Magazine 13.33 (May 1874) 593-603;
and George Bayles, "Cremation and Its Alternatives," Popular
Science Monthly (June 1874) 225-28.
[Note 3] Persifor Frazer, Jr., The Merits of Cremation (Philadelphia:
n.p., 1874) 7, 8, 12. This paper was originally published in the
Penn Monthly in June of 1874.
[Note 4] Frazer, The Merits of Cremation, 13. Frazier was quoting
from "Opinion of an English Bishop," Evening Bulletin
(April 13, 1874).
[Note 5] O. B. Frothingham, The Disposal of Our Dead (New York:
D. G. Francis, 1874) 11, 13.
[Note 6] Frothingham, The Disposal of Our Dead, 13, 27-28, 18,
20.
[Note 7] Frothingham, The Disposal of Our Dead, 22-24.
[Note 8] Richard L. Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons,
Houses, Cities (New York: Knopf, 1992); John Tomisch, A Genteel
Endeavor: American Culture and Politics in the Gilded Age (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1971) 24; Frederick Law Olmstead, quoted
in Bushman, The Refinement of America, 422. See also Stow Persons,
The Decline of American Gentility (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1973); John F. Kasson, Rudeness and Civility: Manners in
Nineteenth-Century Urban America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990);
and Thomas Bender, New York Intellect: A History of Intellectual
Life in New York City, from 1750 to the Beginnings of Our Own Time
(New York: Knopf, 1987). The term "dangerous classes"
comes from Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous Classes of New York
and Twenty Years' Work among Them (New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck,
1872).
[Note 9] "Call a Spade a Spade," Urn 4.3 (March 25, 1895)
2; MC 2.12 (December 1887) 177. Also appearing in a cremationist
periodical was this Matthew Arnold dictum, which some have cited
as the definitive statement of American gentility: "Culture
is to know the best that has been thought and said in the world"
(Urn 3.12 [December 25, 1895] 11).
[Note 10] Eric Hobsbawm, "Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe,
1870-1914," in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm
and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)
279.
[Note 11] "Cremation: The Ancient Grecian Method of Burning
the Dead," Leslie's (April 25, 1874) 1, 101, 103. The Philadelphia
Sunday Press published a mythical tale of a physician who cremated
his deceased son in a furnace in the cellar of his home. Though
intended for publication on April Fool's Day, it appeared later
in the month. See "Cremation in Philadelphia," Times (April
20, 1874) 1; and "The Philadelphia Cremation Story a Hoax,"
Times (April 22, 1874) 1. The Princeton festivities are documented
in an undated pamphlet, "Creative Ceremonials Conducted by
the Sophomore Class of Princeton College, over the Remains of the
Late Brig. Gen. Joseph Bocher." The doggerel appears in "The
Carpers' Club," Daily Graphic (May 2, 1874) 474. A Georgia
newspaper published an apocryphal account of a pro-cremation meeting
in Augusta, Georgia. See "Cremation: The Stupid Philadelphia
Hoax Imitated in Georgia," Times (April 28, 1874) 8. Another
Augusta-based spoof is discussed in "The Funeral Pile,"
Boston Herald (November 28, 1876) 4; and "A Distinguished Cremationist,"
Atlanta Daily Constitution (December 8, 1876) 4. Both articles refer
to an open-air pyre cremation, supposedly conducted by either "The
Oriental Order of Humanity" or "The Oriental Order of
Humilitate."
[Note 12] Cremation: An Ethiopian Sketch (New York: Robert M. De
Witt, 1875).
[Note 13] "De Palm's Incineration," Times (December 7,
1876) 6. Other newspaper sources include but are in no way exhausted
by: "A Fool Cremated," Atlanta Daily Constitution (December
6, 1876) 4; "Ashes to Ashes," Boston Daily Advertiser
(December 9, 1876) 2; "Baron De Palm in Ashes," Boston
Daily Globe (December 7, 1876) 8; "A Subject for Cremation,"
Boston Herald (November 27, 1876) 1; "Cremation," Boston
Herald (December 6, 1876) 4; "Cremation," Boston Herald
(December 7, 1876) 1; "The Cremation of Baron Palm," Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal 95.24 (December 14, 1876) 710-712;
"Cremation vs. Interment," Boston Pilot (December 28,
1876) 4; "The Subject for Cremation," Boston Post (November
30, 1876) 2; "Cremation," Boston Post (December 7, 1876)
2; "Cremation of the Remains of the Late Baron De Palm,"
Leslie's (December 23, 1876) 259; "Successful Cremation,"
New Orleans Times Picayune (December 7, 1876) 8; "Particulars
of the De Palm Cremation," New Orleans Times Picayune (December
8, 1876) 8; "Baron Von Palm's Body," Herald (November
29, 1876) 5; "A Theosophical Roast," Herald (December
5, 1876) 5; "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December
6, 1876) 7; "The Cremation Folly," Herald (December 7,
1876) 6; "Baron De Palm's Cremation," Times (December
6, 1876) 10; untitled editorial, Tribune (November 20, 1876) 4;
"Burning and Burial," Tribune (November 28, 1876) 4; "Cremation
and Burial," Tribune (December 7, 1876) 4; "The Baron's
Last Journey," World (December 5, 1876) 2; "Burning a
Baron," World (December 6, 1876) 1; "Baron De Palm Cremated,"
World (December 7, 1876) 2; untitled editorial, World (December
7, 1876) 4; "Cremation," Inquirer (December 6, 1876) 8;
"Some Talk on Cremation," Inquirer (December 6, 1876)
8; "Cremation," Inquirer (December 7, 1876) 1-2; "More
Cremation Conversation," Inquirer (December 7, 1876) 2; "Cremation
of Baron De Palm," Inquirer (December 7, 1876) 4; "De
Palm's Body Reduced to Ashes," Philadelphia Press (December
7, 1876) 8; untitled editorial, Philadelphia Press (December 7,
1876) 4; "Cremation," San Francisco Chronicle (December
7, 1876) 1. The Daily Graphic also covered the event exhaustively,
devoting to it a series of articles and editorials as well as a
front page cartoon (November 28, December 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, and 15,
1876).
[Note 14] John Storer Cobb, A Quartercentury of Cremation in North
America (Boston: Knight and Millet, 1901) 100; untitled editorial,
Tribune (June 16, 1876) 4; "A Fool Cremated," Atlanta
Daily Constitution (December 6, 1876) 4; Boyd Crumrine, History
of Washington County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts,
1882) 540; "Dr. LeMoyne's Furnace," Times (February 19,
1878) 2; "Baron De Palm Cremated," World (December 7,
1876) 2. For LeMoyne on cremation, see F. Julius LeMoyne, M.D.,
Cremation: An Argument to Prove That Cremation Is Preferable to
Inhumation of Dead Bodies (Pittsburgh: E. W. Lightner, 1878). Additional
biographical information can be found in Crumrine, History of Washington
County, Pennsylvania, 449, 456, 540, 541, 543-48.
[Note 15] On Olcott, see Stephen Prothero, The White Buddhist:
The Asian Odyssey of Henry Steel Olcott (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1996).
[Note 16] "Burning and Burial," Tribune (November 28,
1876) 4; "Cremation," Boston Herald (December 6, 1876)
4; Henry S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves: The History of the Theosophical
Society (Adyar, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1974) 1:150.
I discuss this funeral at some length in Prothero, The White Buddhist,
esp. 54-57. For more contemporary accounts, see Olcott's Old Diary
Leaves, 1:147-84; untitled editorial, New York Independent (June
1, 1876) 15; "A Theosophical Funeral," Times (May 29,
1876) 1; "A Rosicrucian in New-York," Tribune (May 26,
1876) 4; "'Theosophical' Obsequies," Tribune (May 29,
1876) 4; "Baron de Palm's Funeral," Tribune (May 29, 1876)
5; "A Theosophist's Obsequies," San Francisco Chronicle
(May 29, 1876) 3; "The Theosophical Ceremonial over a Coffined
Corpse," San Francisco Chronicle (June 6, 1876) 1. Apparently
De Palm's funeral inspired imitators. See "Another Fancy Funeral,"
Tribune (March 6, 1878) 4.
[Note 17] "Burning and Burial," Tribune (November 28,
1876) 4; "A Theosophical Funeral," Times (May 29, 1876)
1.
[Note 18] "Two Lively Corpses," Boston Herald (December
1, 1876) 2; "A Rosicrucian in New-York," Tribune (May
26, 1876) 4.
[Note 19] "Dr. LeMoyne's Furnace," Times (February 19,
1878) 2; untitled editorial, Tribune (June 16, 1876) 4.
[Note 20] "Baron De Palm Cremated," World (December 7,
1876) 2; "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December 6,
1876) 7; Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1.174.
[Note 21] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1.170.
[Note 22] "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December
6, 1876) 7; "Two Lively Corpses," Boston Herald (December
1, 1876) 2.
[Note 23] "The Subject for Cremation," Boston Post (November
30, 1876) 2. Robert W. Habenstein and William M. Lamers, The History
of American Funeral Directing, 3d rev. ed., ed. Howard C. Raether
(Milwaukee: National Funeral Directors Association, 1995) contains
a helpful history of embalming in nineteenth-century America (197-231).
[Note 24] "The Subject for Cremation," Boston Post (November
30, 1876) 2; "The Baron's Last Journey," World (December
5, 1876) 2.
[Note 25] "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December
6, 1876) 7.
[Note 26] "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December
6, 1876) 7.
[Note 27] "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December
6, 1876) 7; "Burning a Baron," World (December 6, 1876)
1.
[Note 28] "Baron De Palm's Cremation," Times (December
6, 1876) 10; "Baron De Palm Cremated," World (December
7, 1876) 2; "A Cremation Pilgrimage," Herald (December
6, 1876) 7. The Philadelphia Inquirer writer apparently had a stronger
stomach. He witnessed a corpse "in a good state of preservation"
and was not horrified in the least ("Cremation," Inquirer
[December 6, 1876] 8).
[Note 29] "Burning and Burial," Tribune (November 28,
1876) 4.
[Note 30] See A. Otterson, "Cremation of the Dead," in
Report of the Board of Health of the City of Brooklyn, 1875-1876
(Brooklyn: Brooklyn Board of Health, 1877) 131-32; and W. J. Asdale,
J. P. McCord, and J. D. Thomas, "Cremation," Annual Report
of the Board of Health of the City of Pittsburgh for the Year 1876
(Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Board of Health, 1877) 113-23.
[Note 31] "De Palm's Incineration," Times (December 7,
1876) 6; "The Baron's Cremation," Daily Graphic (December
6, 1876) 2; "Baron De Palm Cremated," World (December
7, 1876) 2.
[Note 32] "De Palm's Incineration," Times (December 7,
1876) 6; the other quotation appears in Olcott, Old Diary Leaves,
1.170.
[Note 33]Asdale, McCord, and Thomas, "Cremation," 117;
"The Latest Cremation," Inquirer (February 15, 1878) 1.
[Note 34] "De Palm's Incineration," Times (December 7,
1876) 6; "Cremation of the Remains of the Late Baron De Palm,"
Leslie's (December 23, 1876) 259.
[Note 35] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1.183. The Coney Island suggestion
appears in "The End of Cremation," Times (October 17,
1879) 4.
[Note 36] "An Unceremonious Rite," Times (February 16,
1878) 5.
[Note 37] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1.178; "Baron De Palm Cremated,"
World (December 7, 1876) 2; untitled editorial, Daily Graphic (December
7, 1876) 2; "The Cremation Folly," Herald (December 7,
1876) 6.
[Note 38] "Theosophical Obsequies," Tribune (May 29,
1876) 4; "The Cremation Folly," Herald (December 7, 1876)
6; "Baron De Palm Cremated," World (December 7, 1876);
untitled editorial, World (December 7, 1876) 4; "De Palm's
Incineration," Times (December 7, 1876) 6. Olcott would later
note that the American papers, "which had made fun of the [Theosophical
Society] for having too much religious ceremony at the Baron's funeral,
now abused us for having none at all at his cremation" (Old
Diary Leaves, 1.170).
[Note 39] "Baron De Palm Cremated," World (December 7,
1876) 2; "Burning a Baron," World (December 6, 1876) 1;
"The Cremation Folly," Herald (December 7, 1876) 6.
[Note 40] Stevens and Stokley are quoted in "More Cremation
Conversation," Inquirer (December 7, 1876) 2; Wood's remarks
are from "Some Talk on Cremation," Inquirer (December
6, 1876) 8.
[Note 41] Untitled editorial, Tribune (November 20, 1876) 4.
[Note 42] "Ashes to Ashes," Boston Daily Advertiser (December
9, 1876) 2; untitled editorial, World (December 7, 1876) 4.
[Note 43] "Cremation of the Remains of the Late Baron De Palm,"
Leslie's (December 23, 1876) 268.
[Note 44] "Cremation of the Remains of the Late Baron De Palm,"
Leslie's (December 23, 1876) 268.
[Note 45] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1.149; "A Rosicrucian
in New-York," Tribune (May 26, 1876) 4.
[Note 46] "Baron De Palm's Remains," Times (December
5, 1876) 8; "Baron De Palm's Request," Times (December
4, 1876) 8. On cremation in Japan, see: "Walled-In Peoples,"
Tribune (August 3, 1881) 4; "Cremation in Japan," Tribune
(May 26, 1884); "Cremation in Japan," Popular Science
Monthly 40:48 (March 1892) 715-16; "Cremation in Japan,"
MC 1.1 (January 1886) 12. Cremation in Siam (now Thailand) was the
subject of an untitled editorial in the Tribune on June 16, 1888
(4). Cremation in China is discussed in "Cremation," JAMA
2.3 (January 19, 1884) 69; and Herbert A. Giles, "A Cremation
in China," Eclectic Magazine 29.5 (May 1879) 547-53. Hugo Erichsen's
classic early treatment, The Cremation of the Dead (Detroit: D.
O. Haynes, 1887) traces cremation back to India (7) and contains
illustrations of "Cremation in Calcutta" (14) and "Cremation
in Siam" (19). More on cremation in India can be found in:
"Cremation in India," MC 1.4 (April 1886) 60-61; "Cremation
in India," MC 2.5 (May 1887) 76-77; "Cremation in India,"
Urn (February 25, 1892) 9. See also Fannie Roper Feudge, "Burning
and Burying in the East," Lippincott's Magazine 13.33 (May
1874) 593-603. [
Note 47] "Cremation: The Ancient Grecian Method of Burning
the Dead," Leslie's (April 25, 1874) 1; Olcott, Old Diary Leaves,
1.176.
[Note 48] Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 1.150.
[Note 49] On dechristianization, which I see as a more readily
definable and useful construct than secularization, see Michel Vovelle,
Piété baroque et déchristianisation en Provence
au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Plon, 1973).
[Note 50] Jonathan Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) 109, quoted in Catherine
Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992) 102; "De Palm's Incineration," Times (December
7, 1876) 6. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
[Note 51] "Cremation of a Boston Physician," Times (July
18, 1877) 2; "The Cremation of Dr. Winslow," Times (August
5, 1877) 5; "The Salt Lake Cremation," Times (August 9,
1877) 3. See also: "Cremation," Deseret Evening News (August
1, 1877) 3; Ch. Smart, "Cremation Practically Considered,"
Medical Record 13 (February 9, 1878) 126-29; "Cremation of
Dr. Charles F. Winslow," Popular Science Monthly (October 1877)
765-67; and a series of articles and editorials in the Salt Lake
City Daily Tribune (July 31, August 1, August 2, 1877).
[Note 52] "Cremation of a Baby," Times (November 20,
1877) 8; "The Kircher Cremation Case," Times (November
21, 1877) 8; "No Objection to Cremating," Times (December
5, 1877) 8.
[Note 53] "Yesterday's Cremation," Boston Globe (February
16, 1878) 1; untitled editorial, Boston Globe (February 18, 1878)
4; untitled editorial, Boston Post (February 18, 1878) 1; "The
Cremation Theory Again," Chicago Tribune (February 17, 1878)
4; "Cremation," Tribune (February 16, 1878) 2; "More
of Cremation," Tribune (February 25, 1878) 4; "An Ohio
Lady to Be Cremated," Times (February 13, 1878) 1; "The
Cremation of Mrs. Pitman," Times (February 14, 1878) 5; "An
Unceremonious Rite," Times (February 16, 1878) 5; "Dr.
LeMoyne's Furnace," Times (February 19, 1878) 2; "The
Latest Cremation," Inquirer (February 15, 1878) 1; "Mrs.
Pitman Incinerated," Inquirer (February 16, 1878) 3; untitled
editorial, Inquirer (February 16, 1878) 4; "Mrs. Jane Pitman's
Will," Philadelphia Press (February 13, 1878) 1; "The
State," Philadelphia Press (February 16, 1878) 8; untitled
editorial, Philadelphia Press (February 16, 1878) 4.
[Note 54] "Le Moyne Cremated," Chicago Tribune (October
17, 1879) 1; "A Cremation at Washington, Penn.," Tribune
(October 17, 1879) 1; "A Dead Reformer," Tribune (October
17, 1879) 4; "Cremation of Le Moyne," Inquirer (October
17, 1879) 4; untitled editorial, Inquirer (October 18, 1879) 4;
"The Late Dr. Le Moyne's Cremation Furnace," Philadelphia
Press (October 16, 1879) 5; "Le Moyne's Body," Philadelphia
Press (October 17, 1879) 1; "Reduced to Ashes," Philadelphia
Record (October 17, 1879) 1.
[Note 55] "Cremation," Salt Lake City Daily Tribune (August
1, 1877) 1; "The Salt Lake Cremation," Times (August 9,
1877) 3; "Cremation," Salt Lake City Daily Tribune (August
1, 1877) 2.
[Note 56] "An Ohio Lady to Be Cremated," Times (February
13, 1878) 1; "An Unceremonious Rite," Times (February
16, 1878) 5; untitled editorial, Boston Post (February 18, 1878)
1.
[Note 57] LeMoyne, Cremation: An Argument, 5, 13, 18; Hugo Erichsen,
Roses and Ashes and Other Writings (Detroit: American Printing Company,
1917) 5; "A Dead Reformer," Tribune (October 17, 1879)
4; untitled editorial, Inquirer (October 18, 1879) 4. The poetic
language is Erichsen's, not LeMoyne's.
[Note 58] On the history of religious pluralism in the United States,
see Catherine L. Albanese, America: Religions and Religion (3d ed.;
Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1999); Diana L Eck, On Common Ground:
World Religions in America (CD-ROM; New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997); Thomas A. Tweed, Retelling U.S. Religious History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Thomas A. Tweed
and Stephen Prothero, Asian Religions in America: A Documentary
History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
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