Timeline

1870–1899 ∼ Beginning of the Funeral Industry

Stein Manufacturing Company of Rochester, New York, mass produces caskets in many styles, colors, and grades (early 1870s) / First funeral chapel built in the U.S. (1885) / U.S. College of Embalming opens (1887) / Embalming replaces ice as the main method of preserving the appearance of dead bodies (1890)

MILESTONES: Sioux Indians slaughter Custer’s men at Little Bighorn (1876) • The weekly Independent is the most influential religious paper in the country, with over 6,000 clergymen on its mailing list (1880) • Russell Conwell becomes famous for his sermons on the virtues of wealth, which he preaches 6,000 times (1880–1900) • American Red Cross founded (1881) • German physician Robert Koch discovers tuberculosis bacterium (1882)

1900–1909 ∼ The Decline of Death Rates

Epidemics of yellow fever, malaria, cholera, and smallpox decline (1910) / About 20 percent of Americans die before reaching age 5; less than half survive to age 60 (1900) / Only effective...