Funeral and burial traditions change over time, but many communities continue to follow traditional or unique customs. In this 1940 photograph from Kentucky, centuries old traditions were still followed. Four men carry the deceased in a homemade coffin to the family cemetery. By the 1940s, many Americans had turned preparing the body and funeral over to commercial funeral parlors, with burial in new memorial park cemeteries.
Wolcott, Marion Post, photographer, “Mountain people carrying a homemade coffin near Jackson, Kentucky in Breathitt County,” 1940. Courtesy of Library of Congress
Image featured in Discovering Quacks, Utopias, and Cemeteries: Modern Lessons from Historical Themes by Cynthia Resor